rnia 
1 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

RIVERSIDE 


W*WVVW    +    >9 

Ex  Libris          4 
ISAAC  FOOT 


£ai}ier. 


POEMS.     Edited  by  his  Wife,  with  a  Memorial  by 
WILLIAM  HAYES  WARD.   With  portrait.    i2mo.  $2.50 

THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL,  and  the  Principle  of  its 
Development.     Crown,  8vo 2.00 

THE  BOY'S  FROISSART.     Illustrated.    8vo   ...    2.00 
THE  BOY'S  KING  ARTHUR.     Illustrated.    8vo  .  .    2.00 

KNIGHTLY  LEGENDS  OF  WALES;  or,  The  Boy's 
Mabinogion.     Illustrated 2.00 

THE  BOY'S  PERCY.     Illustrated.    8vo   .  .    2.00 


THE    SCIENCE 


OF 


ENGLISH     VERSE 

BY 

SIDNEY     LANIER 


So  preye  I  God  that  non  myswrite  the, 
Ne  the  mysmeterc  for  defaute  of  tonge. 

CHAUCER:    Troylus  and  Cryseyde. 

If  ...  some  perfect  platform  or  Prosodia  of  versifying  were  .  .  .  ratifyed  and 
sette  downe.  —  WEBBE  :  Discourse  of  Eng.  foetrie. 

A  Poet,  no  Industrie  can  make,  if  his  owne  Genius  bee  not  carried  unto 
it.  ...  Yet  .  .  .  must  the  highest  flying  wit  have  a  Dedalus  to  guide  him. — 
SIR  PHILIP  SIDNEY:  Apol.for  Poetrie. 

.  .  .  Gif  Nature  be  nocht  the  chcif  worker  in  this  airt,  Reulis  wilbe  bot  a 
band  to  Nature  .  .  .  ;  quhair  as,  gif  Nature  be  cheif,  and  bent  to  it,  reulis 
will  be  ane  help  and  staff.  ...  —  KING  JAMES  I. :  Reulis  ami  Cautilis,  &*c. 

Poesie  therefore  may  be  an  Art  in  our  vulgar,  and  that  verie  methodicall 
and  commendable.  —  PinrENHAM  (?) :  Arte  cf  Eng.  Poesie. 

But  the  best  conceptions  cannot  be,  save  where  science  and  genius  are. — 
Trans,  from  DANTE:  De  I'ul.  Eloq. 


NEW  YORK 
CHARLES    SCRIBNER'S    SONS 

1888 


L 


COPYRIGHT,  1880, 
BY  SIDNEY  LANIER. 


Franklin  Press.' 

Blcctrotyped  and  Printed  by 

Rand,  A  very,  &•  Co., 

Botttm. 


PREFACE. 


IF  Puttenham  in  the  sixteenth  century  could  wish 
to  make  the  art  of  poetry  "vulgar  for  all  English- 
men's use,"  such  a  desire  in  the  nineteenth  must  needs 
become  a  religious  aspiration.  For  under  our  new  dis- 
pensation the  preacher  must  soon  be  a  poet,  as  were 
the  preachers  before  him  under  the  old.  To  reach  an 
audience  of  a  variety  so  prodigious  as  to  range  from 
the  agnostic  to  the  devotee,  no  forms  of  less  subtlety 
than  those  of  tone  can  be  effective.  A  certain  wholly 
unconscious  step  already  made  in  this  direction  by 
society  gives  a  confirmation  of  fact  to  this  view  which 
perhaps  no  argument  can  strengthen :  I  mean  the  now 
common  use  of  music  as  a  religious  art.  Music  already 
occupies  one  end  of  the  church :  the  same  inward 
need  will  call  poetry  to  the  other.  How  the  path  of 
spiritual  development  which  has  arrived  at  the  former 
phenomenon  must  presently  reach  the  latter  will  ap- 
pear more  clearly  in  the  course  of  the  demonstration  to 
follow,  which  gives  an  account  of  the  true  relations 
between  music  and  verse.  It  may  be,  indeed,  that  there 

iii 


iv  Preface. 

are  more  persons  nowadays  who  retain  the  "  elegant " 
ideal  of  poetry  which  was  prevalent  a  century  ago 
than  would  willingly  face  an  explicit  statement  of  that 
ideal.  But  it  must  be  said  that  the  world,  as  world, 
has  abandoned  it.  The  tepid  dilution  in  which  Prior 
thought  it  necessary  to  feed  to  his  time  the  marrowy 
English  of  the  old  Nut-Brown  Maid  ballad ;  the  labo- 
rious apologies  with  which  Bishop  Percy  introduced 
his  Reliques  to  the  eighteenth  century,  as  if  he  had 
brought  a  corse  betwixt  the  wind  and  its  nobility ;  the 
painful  undertone  which  we  hear  in  dearest  Keats's 
preface  to  Endymion,  as  if  he  were  not  free  from  a 
sense  of  intrusion  in  challenging  the  world's  attention 
to  forms  of  pure  beauty  which  did  not  directly  concern 
either  trade  or  politics ;  the  amateurish  trifling  which 
crops  out  in  such  expressions  as  "  polite  literature  " 
used  even  by  Poe  in  a  quotation  presently  given, 
and  which  is  still  to  be  traced  here  and  there  in  cur- 
rent talk :  are  things  of  the  past.  That  all  worthy 
poets  belong  substantially  to  the  school  of  David,  that 
it  is  the  poet's  business  to  keep  the  line  of  men 
touching  shoulders  with  each  other,  that  the  poet  is 
in  charge  of  all  learning  to  convert  it  into  wisdom, 
and  that  therefore  a  treatise  on  the  poet's  method  is 
in  its  last  result  a  sort  of  disciplinary  preparation  and 
magister  choralis  for  the  congregation  as  well  as  for 
the  preacher  of  the  future,  —  these  will  not  be  regarded 
merely  visionary  propositions,  and  perhaps  will  be  here 


Preface.  v 

accepted  at  least  as  giving  a  final  unity  to  the  principles 
now  to  be  set  forth. 

The  following  historical  details  will  be  found  to  add 
force  to  these  general  views. 

It  is  now  about  twelve  hundred  years  since  Aid- 
helm's  Epistola  Ad  Acircium,  the  first  essay  on 
verse  by  an  Englishman,  was  written ;  and  Beda's 
treatise  De  Arte  Metrica  followed  Aldhelm's  dialogue 
closely  enough  to  be  fairly  called  contemporary  with 
it :  so  that  we  find  the  thoughts  of  the  fathers I  stir- 
ring upon  the  subject  of  poetic  science  quite  at  the 
historic  beginning  of  our  literature.  But  notwithstand- 
ing this  early  start  of  English  research  into  the  nature 
of  verse,  and  the  host  of  subsequent  speculations 
ranging  from  the  modest  Certayne  Notes  of  Instruction 
concerning  the  Making  of  Verse  .  .  .  in  English,  which 
George  Gascoigne  printed  along  with  his  Posies  in  1575, 
—  through  the  learned  absurdities  of  the  "Areopagus" 
in  which  Sir  Philip  Sidney  and  Fulk  Greville  and  Gabriel 
Harvey  and  Spenser  proposed  a  scheme  for  reducing 

1  It  seems  highly  probable  that  Aldhelm  —  surely  the  most  fascinat- 
ing figure  in  our  literature  before  Chaucer  —  must  have  written  vernacular 
verse  earlier  than  Caedmon,  and  that  he  is  therefore  entitled  to  be  called 
the  Father  of  English  Poetry.  See  William  of  Malmesbury's  Life  of  him, 
here  and  there,  and  scraps  in  Asser's  Life  of  Alfred.  Of  course,  in  this 
location  of  Aldhelm,  as  hinted  in  the  term  "  historic  beginning  "  of  our 
literature,  one  bears  in  mind  the  possible  sixth-century  date  of  Widsith's 
Traveller's  Song,  of  Dear's  Lament,  and  of  other  poems. 


vi  Preface. 

the  English  language  into  subjection  to  the  classic 
laws  of  quantity,  —  through  the  treatises  of  the  seven- 
teenth and  eighteenth  centuries  hereinafter  mentioned, 

—  down  to  Mitford's  decorous  Inquiry  into  the  Har- 
mony of  Language  in  the  beginning  of  the  present  cen- 
tury, the  fancied  discovery  of  Coleridge  in  his  Preface 
to  Christabel,  the  defiant  metrical  outburst  of  Poe  in 
his  Rationale  of  Verse,  and  the  keen  though  professedly 
disconnected   glimpses   of    Professor  Sylvester   in   his 
Laws  of   Verse ;  notwithstanding  this  variety  of  inves- 
tigation it  still  cannot  be  said  that  we  possess  a  theory, 
or  even  a  working-hypothesis,  of  the  technic  of  English 
verse. 

Conclusive  testimony  as  to  the  general  feeling  upon 
this  point  is  to  be  found  in  the  circumstance  that 
among  the  later  treatises  each  begins  by  remarking 
the  wholly  unsatisfactory  nature  of  all  previous  ones ; 
while,  among  the  essays  of  Elizabeth's  time,  the  same 
discontent  usually  takes  the  form  of  a  somewhat  timid 
argument  that  a  science  of  English  poetry  is  possible 

—  an  argument  not  only  addressed  to  a  large  class  of 
Englishmen  who  evidently  believed  otherwise,  but  gen- 
erally advanced  with  a  certain  tone  of  low  spirits  and 
deprecation   which   is    unusual    even    for    the   queasy 
modesty  of  sixteenth-century  dedications.     As,  for  ex- 
ample,   Webbe,    writing   in    1586,    with   a   wistfulness 
which  seems  genuine  enough  desires  to  have  this  mat- 
ter "  thoroughly  taken  in  hande,  and  laboured  by  some 


Preface.  vii 

other  of  greater  abilitie  .  .  .  who,  bothe  for  learning 
and  leysure,  may  handle  this  Argument  far  more 
pythilie  then  myselfe." 

If  these  facts  be  put  together  in  their  proper  rela- 
tions, they  reveal  an  anomaly  which  I  cannot  but  be- 
lieve to  be  without  parallel  in  the  history  of  human 
thought.  Remembering  that  the  science  of  any  art 
can  be  nothing  but  the  body  of  large  facts  which  pre- 
sents itself  upon  assembling  all  the  observed  small  facts 
of  that  art  and  classing  together  such  as  are  substan- 
tially alike,  let  any  one  consider  that  in  the  last  quar- 
ter of  the  sixteenth  century  the  gravest  critics  were 
debating  the  possibility,  not  only  of  a  science,  but  of 
an  art,  of  English  verse,  after  that  art  had'  been  illus- 
trated during  a  thousand  years  by  Aldhelm,  Caedmon, 
Cynewulf,  the  authors  of  The  Death  of  Byrhtnoth  and 
The  Wanderer,  Ormin,  Lydgate,  the  author  of  The 
Vision  Concerning  Piers  Plowman,  Chaucer,  the  Scotch 
poets  of  the  fifteenth  century,  Wyatt,  Surrey,  Sackville, 
and  a  host  of  less  known  or  unknown  singers.  The 
state  of  men's  minds  upon  this  question  at  that  remark- 
able period  of  our  spiritual  history  just  mentioned — the 
last  quarter  of  the  sixteenth  century — forces  upon  us 
a  corollary  of  such  importance  to  my  present  purpose 
that,  before  proceeding  to  show  how  matters  stand  at 
the  present  day,  I  think  it  necessary  to  illustrate  the 
attitude  of  Elizabethan  thought  towards  verse  with  one 
or  two  brief  citations  from  contemporary  works. 


viii  Preface. 

It  was  natural  that  Aldhelm,  writing  in  the  seventh 
century  an  essay  upon  prosody,  —  such  prosody  as  was 
then  thought  of,  —  should  find  pleasure  in  the  reflection 
that  he  was  the  first  to  teach  his  countrymen  upon  this 
matter ;  and  it  seems  charming  to  find  him,  a  venerable 
English  poet  in  the  year  of  our  Lord  700,  aptly  quoting 
Virgil  to  adorn  this  sentiment,  "  Siquidem  illustris  ille 
qui  dicebat :  — 

'  Primus  ego  in  patriam  mecum  (modo  vita  supersit) 
Aonio  rediens  deducam  vertice  Musas, 
Primus  Idumseas  referam  tibi,  Mantua,  palmas.'" 

But,  coming  down  nine  centuries  to  the  time  when 
Englishmen  again  begin  to  treat  of  verse,  we  are  sur- 
prised to  find  each  writer  still  claiming  in  more  or  less 
indirect  methods  to  be  the  first  prosodian  among  us. 
At  the  very  beginning  of  that  last  quarter  of  the 
sixteenth  century  which  we  are  now  considering,  —  in 
1575,  —  George  Gascoigne  enters  upon  his  Certayne 
Notes  of  Instruction  concerning  the  making  of  verse  or 
ryme  in  English,  written  at  the  request  of  Master 
Edouardo  Donati,  by  reminding  Signer  Edouardo  that 
"  Quot  homines,  tot  Sent  entice,  especially  in  Poetrie." 
Of  course  we  gather  from  Gascoigne's  pithy  Latin  that 
if  there  were  as  many  opinions  as  men  in  poetry  the 
science  of  it  had  still  to  be  begun. 

Compare  this  utterance  of  Gascoigne's  with  one  by 
Webbe,  eleven  years  later,  from  which  several  instruc- 
tive inferences  are  to  be  drawn.  In  his  "  Preface  to 


Preface.  ix 

the  Noble  Poets  of  Englande,"  which  introduces  the 
Discourse  of  English  Poetrie,  he  speaks  here  and 
there  to  this  effect:  "Among  the  innumerable  sortes 
of  Englyshe  Bookes,  and  infinite  fardels  of  printed 
pamphlets,  wherewith  thys  Countrey  is  pestered,  all 
shoppes  stuffed,  and  every  study  furnished :  the  great- 
est part  I  thinke  in  any  one  kinde,  are  such  as  are 
either  meere  Poeticall,  or  which  tende  in  some  respecte 
(as  either  in  matter  or  forme)  to  Poetry."  Neverthe- 
less, these  infinite  fardels  of  learning  have  not  helped 
forward  any  science  of  poetry  ;  for  "  it  is  to  be  won- 
dred  at  of  all,  and  is  lamented  of  manie,  that  whereas 
all  kinde  of  good  learning  have  aspyred  to  royall  digni- 
tie  and  statelie  grace  in  our  English  tongue  .  .  .  :  onely 
Poetrie  hath  founde  fewest  frends  to  amend  it ; "  and 
therefore  he  proceeds  to  write  his  Discourse  "  even 
as  it  were  by  way  of  supplication  to  the  famous  and 
learned  Lawreat  Masters  of  Englande,  that  they  would 
but  consult  one  halfe  houre  with  their  heavenly  Muse, 
.  .  .  what  enormities  they  might  wipe  out  of  English 
Poetry  .  .  .  :  if  English  Poetrie  were  truely  reformed, 
and  some  perfect  platforme  or  Prosodia  of  versifying 
were  by  them  ratifyed  and  sette  downe  :  eyther  in 
immitation  of  Greekes  and  Latines,  or  when  it  would 
skant  abyde  the  touch  of  theyr  Rules,  the  like  obser- 
vations selected  and  established  by  the  naturall  affec- 
tation of  the  speeche : "  finally,  praying  the  Laureate 
Masters  of  their  courtesies  to  note  particularly  "the 


x  Preface. 

lyttle  somewhat  which  I  have  sifted  out  of  my  weake 
brayne  concerning  thys  reformed  versifying." 

But  three  years  later1  comes  George  Puttenham, — 
if  it  was  really  he  who  wrote  the  Arte  of  English 
Poesie,  —  with  declarations  and  hints  which  state  the 
matter  in  yet  stronger  terms.  Chapter  II.  of  his  book 
is  headed  :  "  That  there  may  be  an  Art  of  our  English 
Poesiet  aswell  as  there  is  of  the  Latine  and  Greeke" 
and  proceeds  to  expand  this  proposition  with  various 
such  utterances  as  the  following :  "  If  againe  Art  be 
but  a  certaine  order  of  rules  prescribed  by  reason, 
and  gathered  by  experience,  why  should  not  Poesie  be 
a  vulgar  Art  with  us  aswel  as  with  the  Greeks  and 
Latines  ...?...  Poesie  therefore  may  be  an  Art  in 
our  vulgar,  and  that  verie  methodicall  and  commenda- 
ble." A  passage  of  Puttenham's,  in  quite  another  con- 
nection, brings  us  upon  this  same  view  by  a  different 
and  entertaining  path.  Having  spoken  of  the  possi- 
bility of  constructing  classic  dactyls  and  the  like  feet 
with  English  words,  he  concludes,  in  a  shamefaced  way 
that  seems  incredible  when  we  reflect  how  even  the 
very  nursery-songs  of  our  tongue  abound  in  the  rhythms 
which  Puttenham  calls  dactyls,  "  I  intend  not  to  pro- 
ceed any  further  in  this  curiositie  then  to  show  some 
small  subtillitie  that  any  other  hath  not  yet  done  2  .  .  . 

1  Later  in  publication,  though  possibly  written  a  year  before  Webbe's 
book  appeared. 

*  This  expression,  by  the  way,  shows  that  Puttenham  could  not  have 


Preface.  xi 

nor  to  th'  intent  to  have  it  put  in  execution  in  our 
vulgar  Poesie,  but  to  be  pleasantly  scanned  upon,  as 
are  all  novelties  so  frivolous  and  ridiculous  as  it"  ! 

And  finally,  to  end  these  citations,  —  which  must 
have  now  fulfilled  their  end,  of  showing  that  in  the 
latter  part  of  the  sixteenth  century  the  science  of  Eng- 
lish poetry  can  scarcely  be  said  to  have  been  suspected, 
—  the  climax  of  these  curiosities  was  naively  capped 
by  King  James,  who,  in  his  Reulis  .  .  .  and  Cautelis 
(that  is,  Rules  and  Cautions)  of  things  to  be  observed 
and  eschewed  in  making  English  verse,  explains  the 
scope  of  his  desire  thus  :"...!  made  noght *  my  trea- 
tise of  that  intention  that  eyther  I  or  any  others  behoved 
astricktly  to  follow  it ;  but  that  one.ly  it  should  show 
the  perfection  of  Poesie,  whereunto  few  or  none  can 
attain." 

With  these  illustrations  leaving  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury, it  is  now  important  to  show  by  similar  citations 
the  very  different,  though  at  bottom  not  more  hopeful, 
state  which  the  technical  theory  of  our  verse  has 
reached  in  its  course  from  the  last  quarter  of  the  six- 
teenth to  the  last  quarter  of  the  nineteenth  century. 

seen  the  Discourse  of  Webbe,  who  had  not  only  shown  this  "subtil- 
litie  "  in  1586,  but  had  published  some  very  quaint  and  occasionally 
charming  English  hexameters  of  his  own  in  the  same  book;  as,  for 
example :  — 

"  Happie  oUle  man.     In  shaddowy  bankes  and  cool  prettie  places, 
Heere  by  the  quainted  floodes  and  springs  most  hotie  remaining." 

1  Not 


xii  Preface. 

It  might  have  been  expected  that  seventeenth-cen- 
tury works  like  Ben  Jonson's  English  Grammar,  or  But- 
ler's, or  particularly  Wallis's, —  which  last  contained  a 
preliminary  essay  upon  sound,  the  real  clew  to  the 
whole  labyrinth  of  verse,  —  would  have  made  some  con- 
tribution advancing  poetic  science  beyond  where  it  was 
left  by  the  sixteenth-century  writers.  But  they  do  not ; 
nor  do  the  rhyming  vocabularies  of  the  same  period, 
such  as  Willis's  Vestibulum  L^ng^l<z  Latina,  or  Poole's 
English  Parnassus.  The  eighteenth  and  early  nine- 
teenth centuries  help  us  not  :  Goldsmith's  Essay,  Sheri- 
dan's Art  of  Reading,  Steele's  Prosodia  Rationalis, 
Chapman's  Music  of  Language,  Harris's  Discourse, 
Guest's  History  of  English  Rhythms  —  the  last  an  admi- 
rable history  as  far  as  it  goes,  but  a  wholly  mistaken 
theory,  of  our  rhythm  —  do  little  more  than  repeat, 
or  increase,  existing  errors  and  confusions.  In  1804 
Mitford's  Inquiry,  &c.,  into  the  Harmony  of  Lan- 
guage presents  us  with  several  isolated  observations 
which  are  keen  and  valuable,  though  they  occur 
in  the  course  of  a  demonstration  so  fundamentally 
erroneous  as  to  render  the  whole  work  rather  a.  hin- 
drance than  a  help  to  formal  poetry.  Upon  the  point 
now  in  hand,  however,  —  the  melancholy  state  of  poetic 
science  at  that  time,  —  Mitford  is  accurate  and  un- 
equivocal enough.  "When  .  .  .  I  found"  (says  he  in 
his  introductory  remarks)  "that  to  follow  the  Greek 
and  Latin  rules  for  the  mechanism  of  Greek  and  Latin 


Preface.  xiii 

verse  in  writing  was  easy,  but  to  comprehend  the 
ground,  to  see  the  reason  ...  so  that  the  voice  might 
follow  as  well  as  the  pen,  and  the  ear  might  acknowl- 
edge its  performance,  not  only  was  beyond  me,  but, 
as  far  as  I  could  discover,  beyond  all  teachers ;  when 
farther  I  observed  that  for  the  very  different  harmony 
of  English  verse,  no  rule  could  be  obtained  .  .  .  these 
contradictions  engaged  my  thought." 

Mitford's  researches  had  evidently  been  extensive ; 
and  his  assertion  that  "  no  rule  "  could  be  found  for 
English  verse  up  to  his  time  was  therefore  weighty 
enough.  But  a  few  years  afterwards  we  come  upon  an 
utterance  which  gives  us  a  still  more  vivid  picture  of 
affairs :  I  mean  Coleridge's  grave  announcement,  in  the 
Preface  to  C/iristabel  of  1816,  that  he  had  discovered 
a  new  principle  of  English  versification,  to  wit,  that 
of  accents.  This  "  principle "  had  been  employed,  as 
far  as  it  can  be,  in  English  poetry  for  more  than  a 
thousand  years ;  and  the  very  nursery-rhymes  and  folk- 
songs of  our  tongue  present  us  everywhere  with  appli- 
cations of  it '  far  more  daring  and  complex  than  any 
line  of  Christabel. 

Perhaps  the  state  of  poetic  science  revealed  by  Cole- 
ridge's claim  may  infuse  with  a  certain  sympathy  the 
smile  which  must  be  provoked  when  we  reach,  a  few 
years  after  Coleridge,  the  highly  indignant  account  of 
matters  given  by  Edgar  A.  Poe  in  the  outset  of  his 

1  See  the  discussion  of  Rhythm  in  Part  I.  following. 


xiv  Preface. 

Rationale  of  Verse.  "There  is,  perhaps,"  he  cries, 
"no  topic  in  polite  literature  which  has  been  more 
pertinaciously  discussed ;  and  there  is  certainly  not 
one  about  which  so  much  inaccuracy,  confusion,  miscon- 
ception, misrepresentation,  mystification,  and  downright 
ignorance  on  all  sides,  can  be  fairly  said  to  exist." 
Under  these  circumstances,  none  of  us  will  be  prepared 
to  refuse  pardon  when  we  find  Poe's  essay  permeated 
by  a  fundamental  mistake  *  quite  fatal  to  the  usefulness 
of  even  the  shrewd  detached  glimpses  occurring  here 
and  there. 

If  now,  advancing  from  Poe's  Essay  to  that  of  the 
Rev.  W.  W.  Skeat  On  Alliterative  Metre  (printed  in 
Messrs.  Hale's  and  Furnivall's  reproduction  of  Percy's 
Folio  Manuscript,  1868),  we  remark  the  hopeless  tone 
of  the  latter  in  regard  to  the  present  condition  of 
English  prosody,  together  with  the  errors  2  into  which 
its  author  has  been  led  by  the  failure  to  test  an  alleged 
rhythmic  principle  which  has  been  allowed  to  pass  un- 
examined  in  English  thought  for  many  years,  this  brief 

1  Namely,  that  the  accent  makes  every  syllable  long,  —  a  conception 
wholly  unaccountable  to  the  musician,  and  so  absurd  as  to  render  a  large 
proportion  of  existent  music  and  verse  theoretically  impossible.  .  See  the 
following  discussion  of  Rhythm,  Part  I. 

2  Discussed  in  Part  I.  of  this  book.      Meantime  it  is  impossible  to 
pass  an  occasion  for  noting  several  most  useful  suggestions  in  the  essay 
mentioned ;   and   I   am  tempted  to  enlarge  this  into  an  opportunity  for 
acknowledging  with  gratitude  the  hours  of  delight  for  which  I  am  in- 
debted to  the  labors  of  this  scholar. 


Preface.  xv 

array  of  citations  may  fitly  be  closed  with  one  from  the 
Laws  of  Verse  by  Professor  J.  J.  Sylvester,  a  work 
mainly  devoted  to  the  exposition  of  a  branch  of  poetic 
science  which,  so  far  as  I  know,  has  not  hitherto  been 
treated  by  any  author  —  the  "  Phonetic  Syzygy."  Says 
Professor  Sylvester, — 

"  It  does  not  seem  to  be  at  all  understood  among  us  in  England 
.  .  .  that  versification  has  a  technical  side  quite  as  well  capable 
of  being  reduced  to  rules  as  that  of  painting  or  any  other  fine  art. 
In  Miss  Mitford's  recently  published  correspondence  there  is  a 
letter  in  which  she  wonders  at  a  '  travelling  poetess '  asking  her 
for  a  book  of  rules  on  poetry.  The  wonder  should  rather  have 
been  at  no  such  book  (as  far  as  I  am  aware)  existing,  or,  at  all 
events,  being  generally  known  to  do  so,  in  the  English  lan- 
guage." 

This  sketch  of  our  prosodial  history  and  literature 
—  meagre  as  it  necessarily  is,  in  a  work  planned  to  be 
at  once  a  popular  treatise  for  the  general  reader  and  a 
manual  for  the  academic  student  —  would  seem,  at 
least,  full  enough  to  justify  any  contribution  towards  a 
complete  theory  of  the  technic  of  English  verse. 

SIDNEY   LANIER. 
BALTIMORE,  MD.,  February,  1880. 


TABLE   OF   CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  I. 

PACK. 

INVESTIGATION  OF  SOUND  AS  ARTISTIC  MATERIAL        ...     21 

Verse,  a  set  of  sounds  and  silences  with  definite  relations,  21.  Only  four  such 
relations  possible:  duration,  intensity,  pitch,  and  tone-color,  24.  Physical 
explanation  of  these,  26.  Words  depend  on  tone-color,  31.  The  sounds  and 
silences  of  verse  must  be  such  as  are  not  only  generally,  but  exactly,  co-ordi- 
nable  by  the  ear,  33.  Intensity  an  inexact  relation,  39.  Thus,  three  physical 
principles  of  classification  for  all  possible  phenomena  of  verse — duration, 
pitch,  and  tone-color;  whose  co-ordinations  give,  respectively,  rhythm,  tune, 
and  color  in  formal  poetry,  40.  Secondary  use  of  the  four  relations  for  group- 
ing sounds,  41.  Illustration  of  sound-groups  by  sight'groups,  42.  Art  of 
sound,  a  genus,  with  two  species,  music  and  verse,  46.  Differentiation  of 
these,  48,  by  (a)  the  generic  and  specific  tone-colors  of  the  speaking-voice,  50, 
and  (6)  the  peculiar  scale  of  tones  used  by  the  speaking-voice,  54.  The  physi- 
cal principles  thus  discussed  naturally  arrange  this  treatise  in  three  parts,  on 
the  RHYTHMS,  the  TUNES,  and  the  COLORS,  of  English  verse,  respectively,  58. 


PART   I. 

THE    RHYTHMS    OF    ENGLISH    VERSE 

CHAPTER   II. 
OF  THE  DURATION  AND  GROUPING  OF  ENGLISH  VERSE-SOUNDS  .     59 

Illustration  of  verse-sounds,  59.  English  habit  of  common  utterance  gives  to  all 
sounds  definite  and  simple  relations  of  time,  60,  therefore  all  English  sounds 
are  primarily  rhythmic,  62.  Clock-ticks,  illustration  of  primary  and  secondary 
rhythm,  63.  Discussion  of  time  as  essential  basis  of  primary  rhythm,  65. 
Secondary  grouping,  or  the  bar,  in  music  and  verse,  67.  Limitations  of  Greek 
and  Latin  "  Quantity,"  68.  Means  for  recognition  of  rhythmic  intent  in  Eng- 
lish, 71.  English  printed  or  written  words  really  a  partial  system  of  notation 
for  secondary  rhythm,  73.  The  bar  a  unit  of  measure  for  secondary  rhythm, 

xvii 


xviii  Table  of  Contents. 

PAGE. 

75.  Quantity  inseparable  from  English  sounds,  but  determined  by  different 
circumstances  from  classic  quantity,  77.  Besides  the  first  order  of  sound- 
groups,  and  the  second  order  of  sound-groups,  thus  discussed,  English  utter- 
ance gives  a  third,  and  larger,  order  of  sound-groups  —  the  phrase  —  constitut- 
ing tertiary  rhythm,  78.  Illustration  of  musical  phrase,  80.  Verse-phrasing, 
in  Hamlet,  81.  This  kind  of  rhythmic  phrasing  marked-off  for  the  ear  by  a 
rest;  a  second  kind  by  alliteration,  83;  a  third  kind  by  the  logical  accent,  85 
Difference  in  nature  and  function  of  the  rhythmic,  from  the  logical,  accent,  86. 
A  fourth,  and  still  larger  order  of  sound-groups,  the  line,  88.  Marked-off  for 
the  ear  by  the  rest,  89.  Run-on  and  end-stopped  lines,  go,  specially  in  Shak- 
spere,  gi.  Line-group  also  marked-off  for  the  ear  often  by  the  rhyme,  92,  and 
sometimes  by  change  of  pitch,  94.  Fifth,  and  still  larger,  order  of  sound- 
groups  —  the  stanza  —  and  sixth  order  —  the  poem,  —  94.  Synoptical  view  of 
these  orders,  preliminary  to  the  special  separate  discussions  of  them,  95. 

CHAPTER   III. 

SPECIAL  DISCUSSION  OF  THE  RELATIVE  DURATION,  OR  QUAN- 
TITY, OF  ENGLISH  VERSE-SOUNDS,  AS  CONSTITUTING  PRIMARY 
RHYTHM 97 

Errors  as  to  function  of  accent,  and  failure  to  discriminate  primary  from  secon- 
dary rhythm,  98.  Illustration  of  difference  between  recurrence  at  given  num- 
bers, and  at  given  time-intervals,  99.  But  further:  rhythm  is  as  much  a 
matter  of  silence  as  of  sound:  and  since  accent  cannot  distinguish  one  silence 
from  another,  it  canrfot  be  the  basis  of  rhythm;  Tennyson's  verse  reduced  to 
musical  notation,  in  illustration  hereof,  101.  True  relation  of  accent  to  rhythm, 
103.  Musical  system  of  noting  rhythmic  relations  explained,  104,  and  shown 
to  be  the  only  system  adequate  to  note  all  rhythmic  variations  in  utterance, 
107,  as  capable  of  accurately  expressing  those  compensatory  silences,  109, 
which  preserve  a  given  rhythmic  type  through  all  varieties  of  individual  utter- 
ance, no.  Methods  of  initiating  rhythm  in  English  verse,  no.  Distribution 
of  time-values,  in,  in  music  and  verse,  112.  Inadequacy  of  "  Longs"  and 
"Shorts,"  113.  Musical  interpretation  of  Shakspere's  time-distributions,  in 
Measure  for  Measure,  114.  Secret  of  his  melody,  116.  Summary  of  prin- 
ciples as  to  primary  rhythm  emerging  from  the  discussions  up  to  this  point,  117. 

CHAPTER   IV. 
OF  SECONDARY  RHYTHM:  ITS  NATURE  AND  CAUSES    .       .       .118 

Recurrence  of  rhythmic  accent  at  regular  intervals  of  time  enables  the  ear  to 
co-ordinate  those  next-larger  groups  of  sound  called  bars,  the  units  of  secon- 
dary rhythm,  119.  Discrimination  of  rhythmic  accent,  pronunciation  accent, 
and  logical  accent,  120.  3-rhythm  and  4-rhythm,  methods  of  initiating,  125. 
Equivocal  bars  at  beginning,  127.  Three  forms  of  3-rhythm,  and  two  forms 
of  4-rhythm,  specialized  by  long  use  in  English  verse,  128.  Discussion  of 
2-rhythm,  s-rhythm,  6-rhythm,  and  similar  forms,  129;  Japanese  rhythm  inter- 
preted musically,  132  (note);  illustration  of  5-rhythm  from  Hamerik's  Norse 
Suite,  134.  Complete  review  of  possible  fiyms  according  to  position  of  rhyth- 


Table  of  Contents.  xix 

PAGE. 

mic  accent,  135.  Common  error  of  confusing  number  of  sounds  in  the  bar 
with  number  of  time-units  in  the  bar,  136.  Complete  review  of  possible  forms 
according  to  number  of  sounds  and  silences  in  the  bar,  137.  Determination  of 
typic  forms  by  the  sum  of  appearances,  139.  Practical  directions  for  students' 
exercises  on  the  matters  set  forth,  140. 

CHAPTER  V. 

OF  3-RHYTHM,   GENERALLY;   AND   SPECIALLY   OF    ITS   THREE 
FORMS 141 

Passion  of  English  ear  for  3-rhythm,  141.  Illustrated  by  musical  interpretations 
of  English  rhythms  from  earliest  Anglo-Saxon  poetry  to  the  present  time,  142. 
Errors  of  scholars  as  to  Anglo-Saxon  rhythm,  143.  Rhythmic  alliteration  in 
Anglo-Saxon  verse,  145.  Pronunciation  of  letters  in  illustrative  passage,  146. 
Description  of  passage,  and  musical  scheme  of  one  hundred  bars,  from  the 
Anglo-Saxon  poem  of  The  Battle  of  Maldon,  147.  Translation  of  extract, 
149.  Classification  and  summary  of  Anglo-Saxon  rhythmic  forms,  151.  Ad- 
ditional Anglo-Saxon  illustrations,  musically  noted,  from  Caedmon,  154, 
Beowulf,  156,  The  Wanderer,  157,  compared  with  modern  rhythms  of  Swin- 
burne and  Morris,  158.  Illustrations  from  The  Ormulum,  i3th  century,  159; 
The  Cuckoo-Song,  131!)  century,  160;  Piers  Plowman,  163.  Contrast 
betweeen  Langland's  (Piers  Plowman)  and  Chaucer's  rhythms,  163.  Relation 
of  Chaucer  and  Surrey  to  blank  verse,  166.  Musical  scheme  from  Th» 
Knight's  Tale,  167.  Transition  from  Anglo-Saxon  rhythm,  through  Lang- 
land's,  to  Chaucer's,  as  appearing  in  the  link  of  Chaucer's  final  bars,  168. 
Final  e  in  Chaucer's  terminal  bars,  169.  Scheme  of  The  Song  of  Ever  and 
Never,  early  i6th  or  late  isth  century,  171.  Comparison  of  double-ending 
final  bars  in  Hamlet  with  same  in  Chaucer's  Prologue  to  the  Canterbury 
Tales,  172.  Musical  schemes  from  Keats's  Endymion,  Poe's  Raven,  Long- 
fellow's Psalm  of  Life,  and  Emerson's  Brahma,  174.  Schemes  of  five  Eng- 
lish battle-songs,  covering  twelve  centuries,  all  in  same  form  of  3-rhythm: 
The  Fight  at  Finnesburg,  175,  The  Death  of  Byrhtnoth,  177,  Laya- 
mon's  Brut,  178,  The  Ballad  of  Agincourt,  179,  The  Charge  of  the  Light 
Brigade,  182.  Special  discussion  of  blank  verse,  or  the  modern  English 
heroic  rhythmus,  182.  Distinct  from  ancient  English  heroic  rhythmus,  183. 
Astonishing  prevalence  of  this  rhythm  in  English  poetry,  184.  Treatment 
confined  to  Shakspere's  blank  verse,  but  no  less  exhaustive;  and  embraced 
under  Shakspere's  use  of  (a)  the  rest,  of  (6)  the  run-on  and  end-stopped 
line,  of  (c)  the  double-ending  line,  of  (a~)  the  weak-ending  line,  and  of  (e) 
the  rhythmic  accent,  185.  Shakspere's  use  of  the  rest,  same  as  in  nursery 
songs,  and  in  the  Southern  negro's  patting  of  the  Juba  dance,  186.  Musical 
illustrations  from  Mother  Goose,  187,  Haydn's  Symphony,  188,  and  Juba,  189. 
Shakspere's  rests  in  the  body  of  the  line:  illustration  from  Measure  for 
Measure,  190.  Method  of  determining  doubtful  lines,  191.  Such  rests  aid 
expression  in  Shakspere,  193.  Errors  of  commentators  in  this  matter,  194. 
Discussion  of  Professor  Craik's  remark  on  Coleridge,  195.  Musical  scheme 
from  Christabel,  197.  Shakspere's  end-stopped  and  run-on  lines:  advance 
from  Love's  Labor's  Lost,  198,  to  The  Tempest,  199,  shown  by  respective 


xx  Table  of  Contents. 

PAGE. 

percentages  of  such  lines,  and  caution  as  to  this  metrical  test,  200.  Further 
references  on  this  subject,  for  students,  201.  Shakspere's  double-ending,  or 
feminine-ending,  lines,  202,  applied  to  test  Henry  VIII,  as  between  Shak- 
spere's and  Fletcher's  parts,  204.  Musical  interpretation  of  Fletcher's  double 
endings,  206,  which  are  often  really  Alexandrines,  208,  greatly  different  from 
Shakspere's  double  endings,  209.  Definition  of  weak-ending  and  light-ending 
lines,  and  Shakspere's  advance  in  the  use  of  them  from  early  to  late  plays, 
211.  Shakspere's  peculiar  management  of  the  rhythmic  accent,  212,  and 
advance,  in  late  plays,  towards  prose-rhythms,  213,  preserving  the  rhythmic 
type  through  infinite  variation,  214.  Statement  of  principles  as  to  rhythmic 
accent  in  Shakspere,  214,  and  application  of  these  to  interpreting  rhythm  of 
passage  from  The  Tempest,  215,  showing  Shakspere's  three  habitual  methods 
of  varying  the  rhythmic  accent,  217.  (i)  Lines  beginning  with  rests,  used 
also  by  Chaucer,  217;  and  particularly  suitable  after  run-on  lines,  219.  (2) 
Rests  changing  places  with  sounds  in  the  line  and  thus  shifting  accent,  220. 
(3)  Prolonging  sound  into  the  next  bar,  to  shift  accent,  222.  Extension  of 
these  methods  to  classic  prosody,  223.  Webbe,  Gascoigne  and  King  James, 
on  the  iambus,  i6th  century,  224. 

CHAPTER   VI. 
OF  4-RHYTHM,  GENERALLY  ;  AND  SPECIALLY  OF  ITS  Two  FORMS   225 

Scheme  of  /fame  Came  my  Gude  Man,  classic  dactyls  and  spondees,  225. 
Logacedic  dactyl,  226.  Dactyl  and  spondee  in  Beethoven's  Seventh  Sym- 
phony, 227.  Scheme  of  Jean  Ingelow's  Like  a  Laverock,  228.  Comic 
4-rhythm,  229.  Anacrusis,  229.  4-rhythm  in  Pinafore,  231.  Scheme  of  A 
Slain  Love,  232. 

CHAPTER  VII. 
OF  THE  THIRD  AND  FOURTH  ORDERS  OF  RHYTHMIC  GROUPING  233 

Phrase-group,  logical  group,  alliterative  group,  matters  of  individuality,  234. 
No  law  given  for  third-order  groups,  234.  Fourth-order  groups,  the  line; 
number  of  bars  to  the  line  in  English  verse,  234.  System  of  nomenclature 
proposed,  235.  Obliteration  of  the  line-group  in  Shakspere,  235.  Rhythmic 
function  of  rhyme,  in  marktng-off  the  line-group,  236.  Orm,  i3th  century, 
uses  "  Rime  "  for  rhythm,  237.  i6th  century  terms  for  special  sorts  of  lines: 
"  Poulter's  Measure,"  237,  "  Riding  Rhyme,"  "  Metre  Heroical,"  "  Rhythm 
Royal,"  238. 

CHAPTER  VIII. 
OF  THE  FIFTH  ORDER  OF  RHYTHMIC  GROUPS:  THE  STANZA  239 

Various  forms  of  stanza  according  to  number  of  lines,  239.  This  number  with- 
out limitation  in  English  verse,  240.  But  one  specialized  stanza,  the  sonnet, 
340.  Special  discussion  of  the  Italian,  or  legitimate,  sonnet,  241,  and  the 
English,  or  illegitimate,  sonnet,  243.  Personal  character  of  sonnet  in  English 
poetry,  243.  English  sonnet-makers  since  Surrey  and  Wyatt,  244.  Shak- 


Table  of  Contents.  xxi 

PAGE. 

spere's  sonnets,  244  (and  see  also,  278,  279).  Confused  notions  among  the 
Elizabethans  about  the  sonnet,  245.  Leigh  Hunt's  Book  of  the  Sonnet ;  no 
good  collection  of  English  sonnets  yet  printed,  245. 

CHAPTER   IX. 


NATURE 246 

Rudest  nations  have  instruments  for  marking-off  rhythms,  246.  Earliest  form 
of  rhythmic  apparatus,  in  Southern  negro's  "  patting,"  247.  Rhythm  perhaps 
a  universal  principle  throughout  physical  nature  :  Herbert  Spencer's  generali- 
zation, 248.  Rhythmic  diseases,  248.  Poe's  rhythmic  simile  in  Eureka,  249. 
Puttenham's  remark,  249.  Antagonism,  the  essential  principle  of  rhythm  in 
physical  world;  extension  of  this  to  moral  world,  250. 


PART   II. 

THE    TUNES    OF    ENGLISH    VERSE. 

CHAPTER   X. 

OF  TUNE  IN  SPEECH  :  ITS  NATURE  AND  OFFICE    .       .       .       .251 

Speech-melodies  necessary  to  ordinary  communication;  every  feeling  has  its 
tune,  252.  Not  only  this,  but  the  same  words  differ  in  meaning  according  to 
the  tune  of  their  utterance,  252.  Precise  discrimination  of  melody,  harmony, 
and  rhythm;  words  often  vaguely  used,  253.  Speech-tunes  in  the  German 
comedy,  Come  Here,  254.  Absence  of  speech-tunes  has  one  of  two  effects, 
(i)  idiotic,  256,  or  (2)  unnatural,  257.  Effect  of  consciously  co-ordinating 
the  tunes  we  hear  in  every-day  speech,  258.  The  clown's  speech-melodies  in 
All's  Well  that  Ends  Well,  258.  Slander,  by  repeating  right  words  in 
wrong  tunes,  359.  Other  illustrations  of  subtle  tunes  of  speech,  260.  The 
modern  "  reading,"  as  Charlotte  Cnshman's,  an  art  now  rising,  based  on 
speech-tunes,  261.  Historic  outline,  showing  the  differentiation  of  the 
speech-tune  from  the  music-tune,  262.  Relations  of  these  two  in  antique 
period,  265.  Greek  musical  declamation,  first  phase  of  differentiating  process, 
266.  Clew  of  the  fourth,  266.  Mediaeval  period:  polyphonic  music;  discant; 
268.  Modern  period:  accompanied  recitative  in  the  early  i7th  century,  269. 
Final  differentiation  of  the  symphony,  as  opposed  to  the  speech-tune,  270. 
Natural  to  expect  the  separation  just  at  this  present  time,  271.  Possible 
development  in  this  direction,  271.  Nature  of  speech-tunes;  why  musical 
system  is  inadequate  to  note  them,  272.  Speech-tunes  employ  intervals  less 
than  half-tones,  273.  Power  of  the  average  ear  to  discriminate  small  intervals, 
274.  Capacity  of  the  ear  for  education  in  this  particular,  275.  Notation  of 
speech-recitative  in  negro  sermon,  276.  Contrast  with  speech-tunes  of  Dray- 
ton's  sonnet,  No  and  /,  277.  Speech-tunes  of  Shakspere's  sonnets,  278. 


xxii  Table  of  Contents. 


PART  III. 

THE  COLORS  OF  ENGLISH  VERSE. 

CHAPTER   XI. 

PAGE. 
OF  COLORS  IN  VERSE,  GENERALLY  ;  AND  OF  RHYME,  SPECIALLY  .   280 

Vowels  and  consonants  phenomena  of  tone-color,  280.  Term  "  colors  of 
verse"  strictly  scientific,  not  fanciful,  281.  Curious  coincidence  in  King 
James  and  Webbe,  282.  Four  species  of  verse-color  herein  treated,  rhyme, 
vowel-distribution,  consonant-distribution,  and  alliteration,  283.  Precise  defi- 
nition of  English  rhyme,  284.  Historic  outline  of  rhyme  in  English  verse; 
Anglo-Saxon  rhymes,  285.  The  Anglo-Saxon  "  rhyming  poem,"  286  (note). 
Aldhelm's  Latin  rhymes,  289.  Rhymes  in  The  Ormulum  :  references  for 
students,  293.  Parties  for  and  against  rhyme  in  i6th  century;  the  Areopagus, 
293.  Puttenham,  Webbe,  Ascham,  Ben  Jonson,  Greene,  on  rhyme,  294. 
Rhyme-test  for  chronology  of  Shakspere's  plays,  295.  Several  cautions  as  to 
use  of  rhyme  in  English  verse,  296.  Must  contain  reason,  297;  must  be 
absolutely  perfect,  297;  not  too  far  apart,  299;  not  finical,  299;  not  near 
shades  of  tone-color,  300;  sonorous  and  dignified  tone-colors,  301. 

CHAPTER  XII. 
DISTRIBUTION  OF  VOWEL-COLORS  IN  THE  LINE-GROUP.        .        .   302 

Exaggerated  instance  of  iterant  tone-color,  302.  Examples  from  Daniel,  303, 
and  Bartholomew  Griffin,  304. 

CHAPTER   XIII. 
OF  CONSONANT-DISTRIBUTION  :  JUNCTION,  AND  PHONETIC  SYZYGY.   305 

Junction  of  terminal  and  initial  consonants,  /with  /,  ^-with  b,  st  with  st,  &c., 
305.  Phonetic  syzygy,  306. 

CHAPTER   XIV. 
OF  ALLITERATION 309 

Different  rhythmic  function  of  alliteration  in  Anglo-Saxon  poetry  from  that  in 
modern  English,  310  (see  also  page  84).  Example  of  modern  use  of  allitera- 
tion to  vary  rhythm,  from  Watson's  Hekatompatheia,  311.  Parties  for  and 
against  it  in  i6th  century;  Greene's  and  Shakspere's  jokes  on  it,  312.  Errors 
of  Turner  and  Tyrwhitt  as  to  Anglo-Saxon  alliteration,  313.  Warning  against 
"  loud  "  alliteration. 

CHAPTER  XV. 
OF  THE  EDUCATED  LOVE  OF  BEAUTY,  AS  THE  ARTIST'S  ONLY  LAW.   315 

Matters  herein  treated,  only  hints;  no  law  for  the  artist  but  beauty;  the  appeal 
is  to  the  ear;  and  the  touch-stone  is  music,  315. 


SCIENCE  OF  ENGLISH  VERSE. 


CHAPTER   I. 

INVESTIGATION   OF  SOUND  AS   ARTISTIC   MATERIAL. 

PERHAPS  no  one  will  find  difficulty  in  accepting  the 
assertion  that  when  formal  poetry,  or  verse,  —  two  terms 
which  will  be  always  used  here  as  convertible, — is  re- 
peated aloud,  it  impresses  itself  upon  the  ear  as  verse 
only  by  means  of  certain  relations  existing  among  its 
component  words  considered  purely  as  sounds,  without 
reference  to  their  associated  ideas.  If  the  least  doubt 
upon  this  point  should  be  entertained,  it  may  be  dis- 
pelled by  observing  that  all  ideas  may  be  abolished  out 
of  a  poem  without  disturbing  its  effect  upon  the  ear 
as  verse.  This  may  be  practically  demonstrated  by  the 
simple  experiment  of  substituting  for  the  words  of  a 
formal  poem  any  other  words  which  preserve  the  accent- 
uation, alliteration,  and  rhyme,  but  which  convey  no 
ideas  to  the  mind, — words  of  some  foreign  language 
not  understood  by  the  experimenter  being  the  most 
effective  for  this  purpose.  Upon  repeating  aloud  the 
poem  thus  treated  it  will  be  found  that  the  verse-struc- 
ture has  not  been  impaired.  If,  therefore,  the  ear 
accepts  as  perfect  verse  a  series  of  words  from  which 
ideas  arc  wholly  absent,  —  that  is  to  say,  a  series  of 


22  Science  of  English   Verse. 

sounds,  —  it  is  clear  that  what  we  call  "  verse  "  is  a  set 
of  specially  related  sounds,  at  least  in  the  case  of  a 
formal  poem  repeated  aloud. 

But  a  much  more  sweeping  proposition  is  true.  If  we 
advance  from  the  case  of  formal  poetry  repeated  aloud 
to  that  of  formal  poetry  silently  perused  by  the  eye  of 
a  reader,  a  slight  examination  will  show  the  proposition 
good  that  here,  as  before,  verse  is  still  a  set  of  specially 
related  sounds.  For,  in  this  instance,  the  characters 
of  print  or  writing  in  which  the  words  are  embodied  are 
simply  signs  of  sounds  ;  and  although  originally  received 
by  the  eye,  they  are  handed  over  to  the  ear,  are  inter- 
preted by  the  auditory  sense,  and  take  their  final  lodge- 
ment, not  at  all  as  conceptions  of  sight,  but  as  concep- 
tions of  hearing.  The  function  of  the  eye  is  now 
purely  ministerial:  it  merely  purveys  for  the  ear.  An 
analogous  process  is  indicated  in  the  Arabian  saw 
which  affirms  that  "that  is  the  best  description  which 
makes  the  ear  an  eye."  In  general,  the  reader  will 
do  well  to  recall  that  each  sense  has  not  only  what  is 
ordinarily  called  its  physical  province,  but  also  its  cor- 
responding imaginative  province ;  the  eye  has  its  ima- 
gination, the  ear  its  imagination  ;  and  when  the  term 
"imagination  of  the  ear"  is  hereinafter  used  it  must 
be  understood  to  suggest  those  perceptions  of  sound 
which  come  to  exist  in  the  mind,  not  by  virtue  of  actual 
vibratory  impact  upon  the  tympanum  immediately  pre- 
ceding the  perception,  but  by  virtue  of  indirect  causes 
(such  as  the  characters  of  print  and  of  writing)  which 
in  any  way  amount  to  practical  equivalents  of  such 
impact.  Now  these  signs  convey,  along  with  their 
corresponding  sounds,  the  same  relations  between  those 
sounds  which  are  suggested  to  the  ear  when  the  sounds 


Verse  a  Phenomenon  of  Sound.  23 

themselves  fall  upon  the  tympanum.  It  is  there- 
fore strictly  true  that,  although  the  great  majority  of 
formal  poems  in  modern  times  are  perceived  by  the 
mind  through  the  original  agency  of  the  eye,  the  rela- 
tions indicated  by  the  term  "verse"  are  still  relations 
between  sounds. 

Nor  —  to  call  the  briefest  attention  to  the  only  other 
case  in  which  this  fundamental  proposition  could  seem 
at  all  doubtful  —  is  this  connection  of  verse  with  sound 
less  essential  when  the  formal  poem  is  merely  conceived 
in  the  thought  of  its  author  without  ever  reaching 
either  visible  or  audible  embodiment.  For  the  formal 
poem  is  necessarily  conceived  in  words,  and  in  the  ima- 
gination of  the  sounds  (words)  is  necessarily  involved 
the  imagination  of  the  relations  between  the  sounds, 
that  is,  of  verse. 

In  short,  when  we  hear  verse,  we  hear  a  set  of  rela- 
tions between  sounds  ;  when  we  silently  read  verse, 
we  see  that  which  brings  to  us  a  set  of  relations  between 
sounds ;  when  we  imagine  verse,  we  imagine  a  set  of 
relations  between  sounds. 

Approached  in  this  way,  the  proposition  given  below 
will  probably  not  seem  difficult  of  acceptance;  indeed 
it  is  possible  many  will  be  surprised  that  the  ideas 
leading  to  it  have  been  dwelt  upon  so  long.  In  point 
of  fact,  however,  it  is  the  very  failure  to  recognize 
verse  as  in  all  respects  a  phenomenon  of  sound  and  to 
appreciate  the  necessary  consequences  thereof  which 
has  caused  the  non-existence  of  a  science  of  formal 
poetry.  Occasion  will  presently  arise  to  show  how  this 
has  happened,  with  some  detail ;  meantime,  we  are  now 
prepared  to  formulate  a  proposition  which  will  serve  as 
the  basis  of  a  science  of  verse. 


24  Science  of  English   Verse. 

The  term  "verse"  denotes  a  set  of  specially  related 
sounds. 

It  is  clear  that  if  we  can  now  ascertain  all  the  pos- 
sible relations  between  sounds  we  will  have  discovered 
all  the  possible  determinants  of  verse,  and  will  have 
secured  physical  principles  for  the  classification  of  all 
verse-effects  from  which  there  can  be  no  appeal.  This 
investigation  can  fortunately  be  carried  on  with  the  con- 
fidence attaching  to  the  methods  of  physical  science. 
For  it  involves  mainly  the  observation  of  sensible  ap- 
pearances ;  and  these  are,  furthermore,  in  the  present 
instance  not  complex. 

The  study  of  verse  must  therefore  begin  with  the 
study  of  sounds. 

Sounds  may  be  studied  with  reference  to  four  and 
only  four,  particulars.  We  may  observe  — 

(1)  How  long  a  sound  lasts  (duration); 

(2)  How  loud  a  sound  is  (intensity) ; 

(3)  How  shrill  —  that  is,  how  high,  as   to  bass   or  treble  —  a 
sound  is  (pitch} ; 

and 

(4)  Of  what  sounds  a  given  sound  is  composed  —  for,  as  in  study- 
ing colors  we  find  purple  composed  of  red  and  violet,  and  the  like, 
so  many  sounds  have  been  discovered  to  be  made  up  of  other 
sounds  (tone-color). 

These  differences  in  sounds,  although  really  so  dis- 
tinct from  each  other  as  to  be  the  origin  of  some  of 
the  most  striking  and  widely-separated  phenomena  both 
in  art  and  in  our  daily  life,  are  so  confused  by  most 
persons  who  have  had  no  special  occasion  to  examine 
them  that  there  are  no  terms  of  ordinary  use  in  which 
they  can  be  expressed  with  scientific  precision.  The 
reader,  however,  will  not  only  advance  with  ease,  but 


Four  Possible  Sound- Relations.  25 

will  win  a  whole  new  world  of  possible  delight,1  by  ac- 
quiring at  the  outset  such  a  familiarity  with  the  sound- 
relations  above  termed  duration,  intensity,  pitch,  and 
tone-color,  that  the  ear  will  immediately  and  intelli- 
gently refer  every  sound  heard  to  all  those  particu- 
lars and  measure  its  relations  to  the  preceding  or 
succeeding  sound  in  terms  of  them.  The  remarkable 
powers  which  the  human  ear  possesses  of  making  per- 
fectly accurate  comparisons  of  sound  with  sound  in 
three  of  these  particulars  will  presently  be  detailed. 

Meantime  the  reader  will  receive  great  assistance 
towards  a  clear  conception  of  these  differences  by  ob- 
serving exactly  how  they  are  caused  by  the  vibrating 
body  producing  the  given  sound ;  that  is,  by  attending 
to  the  physical  explanation  of  duration,  intensity,  pitch, 
and  tone-color. 

For  this  purpose  :  remembering  that  all  sounds  are 
caused  by  the  vibrations  of  some  vibrating  body,  which 
are  impressed  upon  the  air,  and  through  the  air  upon 
the  drum-membrane,  or  tympanum,  stretched  inside  the 
ear,  whence,  after  being  conveyed  along  a  complex 
arrangement  of  bones  and  fluids,  they  are  sent  to  the 
brain  and  are  perceived  as  sound :  remembering,  fur- 
ther, that  what  we  call  "  sound,"  the  physicist  only  rec- 
ognizes as  "  vibrations  :  "  let  us  consider  the  behavior 
of  a  vibrating  string,  as  the  type  of  all  sound-producing 
bodies. 

If  a  stretched  string  be  plucked  out  of  its  position 
and  thus  set  to  vibrating,  we  can,  in  observing  its 

1  See  particularly  the  discussion  of  the  Tunes  of  Verse  in  Part  II. 
recommending  the  habit  of  consciously  co-ordinating  those  remarkable 
tunes  of  the  speaking-voice  which  constitute,  perhaps,  a  greater  element 
in  modern  speech  than  words,  and  which  are  giving  rise  to  the  modern 
art  of  spoken  recitation. 


26  Science  of  English   Verse. 

vibrations,  direct  our  attention  to  the  following  four 
matters,  which  include  all  the  possible  classes  of  such 
phenomena. 

(i)1  We  can  observe  how  long  the  string  vibrates,  or 
the  duration  of  its  activity. 

(2)  We  can  observe   how  far  to   one    side   and    the 
other   its    swing,  or  "excursion,"    is  extended.     Upon 
this  distance  depends  the  loudness,  or  intensity,  of  the 
resulting  sound.     The  reader  must  associate  clearly  the 
ideas  of  distance  of  swing  (called  in  the  science  of  sound 
"excursion")  and  intensity  of  sound.     The  greater  the 
excursion,  the  greater  the  intensity  (or  loudness)  of  the 
sound.     It  is  easy  to  see  that  if  the  string  be  pulled  very 
far  out  of  its  position  and  let  go,  it  will  vibrate  with 
more  force  than  when  pulled  only  a  little  way  out.     The 
measure  of  the  far-ness  is  therefore  the  measure  of  the 
force ;  and,  of  course,  the  impression  on  the  ear,  when 
the  vibrations  reach  it,  will  be  more  intense  according 
as  they  are  more  forcible.     In  short,  stated  technically, 
the  intensity  of  the  sound  depends  upon  the  vibratory 
excursion. 

(3)  But,  instead   of   observing   how  long  the   string 
continues  to  vibrate  (duration},  or  how  far  to  one  side 
and  the  other  it  vibrates  (intensity),  we  may  observe, 
thirdly,  how  fast  it  vibrates.     The  pitch  of  the  sound 
depends  upon  this  circumstance.     Slow  vibrations  give 
sounds   of   low  pitch,  or  bass    sounds :   the  faster   the 
vibrations  become,  the  higher,  or  more  treble,  are  the 

1  These  numbers  in  parentheses  are  repetitions  of  those  accompany- 
ing the  terms  "  duration,"  "  intensity,"  &c.,  and  are  merely  intended  as  an 
additional  association,  helpful  to  the  reader,  between  the  physical  phe- 
nomena of  vibration  and  the  mental  phenomena  of  sound,  —  the  term 
"sound  "  implying  the  perception  by  the  ear,  while  the  term  "vibrations" 
has  reference  only  to  the  phenomena  occurring  up  to  that  point. 


Duration;   Intensity;    Pitch.  27 

corresponding  sounds.  Of  course,  this  observation  of 
the  rapidity  of  vibrations  could  not  be  carried  on  by 
the  unassisted  eye.  Every  reader,  whether  specially 
interested  in  acoustics  or  not,  would  do  well  to  be  at 
some  pains  in  becoming  familiar  with  the  beautiful 
series  of  apparatus  '  which  has  been  devised  by  modern 
physicists  for  counting  the  vibrations  of  sounding 
bodies  and  for  confirming  and  extending  many  of  the 
wonderful  facts  revealed  to  us  by  the  knowledge  of 
these  rates  of  vibration,  particularly  the  fact  of  tone- 
color,  to  be  explained  in  the  next  paragraph.  It 
would  not  be  proper  to  detail  these  inquiries  here, 
further  than  to  call  the  reader's  attention  to  the  fact 
that  the  art  of  sound,  with  which  we  are  at  present 
concerned,  has  for  its  materials  a  body  of  tones  which 
range  in  pitch  from  the  tone  which  is  produced  by  a 
body  vibrating  about  twenty-four  times  in  a  second  to 
that  which  is  produced  by  a  body  vibrating  about  four 
thousand  seven  hundred  times  in  a  second.  If  one  sits 
in  front  of  a  low-tuned  piano,  and  presses  down  the  key 
farthest  to  the  left,  the  string  struck  by  that  key  will 
vibrate  about  twenty-four  times  to  the  second,  and  will 
give  forth  a  tone  so  low  in  pitch  that  many  ears  are 
almost  unable  to  distinguish  its  tone  from  that  of  the 
next  key  to  it.  If  the  key  at  the  extreme  right  be 
pressed  down,  the  string  which  it  strikes  will  vibrate 
about  three  thousand  five  hundred  times  to  the  second. 
Higher  tones  than  the  latter  —  reaching  to  about  four 

1  The  main  book  to  be  read  for  this  purpose  is,  of  course,  Professor 
Helmholtz's  monumental  work,  Die  Lehre  von  deii  TonenipfitiJungen, 
which  has  recently  been  translated  into  English,  with  very  important  addi- 
tions, by  Mr.  Alexander  J.  Ellis.  Smaller,  and  perhaps  more  accessible, 
books,  are  Tyndall's  Lectures  On  Sound,  Mayer's  work  on  the  same  subject 
(Appleton),  and  Blaserna's  Theory  of  Sound  (Appleton). 


28  Science  of  English   Verse. 

thousand  seven  hundred  vibrations  per  second  —  can 
be  obtained  on  the  piccolo. 

But  the  sounds  with  which  we  shall  presently  be 
more  specially  concerned  —  namely,  the  sounds  of  the 
human  speaking-voice,  in  which  the  art  of  verse  finds 
its  primary  material  —  range  within  narrower  limits. 
To  produce  the  lowest  tone  of  a  man's  bass  voice, 
the  vibrations  must  be  about  sixty-five  in  a  second ; 
while,  for  the  highest  tones  of  a  woman's  voice,  the 
upper  limit  —  leaving  out  exceptional  cases  —  may  be 
taken  as  lying  at  about  a  thousand  and  forty-four  vibra- 
tions in  a  second.  These  are  the  limits  for  the  human 
singing-voice ;  but,  as  will  be  seen  in  the  discussion  of 
the  tunes  of  verse  following,  they  are  also  substantially 
the  limits  of  the  speaking-voice.  To  sum  up  these 
details  before  proceeding  to  the  next  paragraph  :  the 
reader  is  asked  to  form  the  clearest  conception  of  the 
difference  between  the  intensity  of  sounds — that  is, 
their  loudness  or  softness  —  and  the  pitch  of  sounds  — 
that  is,  their  bass-ness  or  treble-ness.  We  shall  pres- 
ently find  that  great  confusion  has  arisen  in  the  discus- 
sion of  what  is  called  "  accent  "  from  inexact  ideas  upon 
this  point.  For  this  reason,  the  physical  explanations 
of  intensity  and  pitch  have  been  dwelt  upon  in  the 
preceding  and  present  paragraphs.  The  reader  can 
always  accurately  distinguish  them  by  associating  the 
intensity  of  a  sound  with  the  distance  of  the  vibratory 
excursion,  and  the/z'Ar/2  of  a  sound  with  the  rapidity  of 
the  vibration. 

(4)  We  have  now  arrived  at  the  last  of  the  particu- 
lars in  regard  to  which  we  may  observe  the  vibrations 
of  a  string.  This  is  the  particular  called  by  some  phys- 
icists "quality,"  by  others  "timbre,"  by  Mr.  Tyndall 


Tone -Color.  29 

(whose  explanation  of  it  is  perhaps  the  clearest  to  the 
general  reader :  see  his  Lectures  on  Sound,  cited  in 
the  last  paragraph)  "  clang-tint,"  in  translation  of  the 
German  term  Klang-farbe ;  and  by  still  others  "tone- 
color."  The  analogy  to  the  corresponding  phenomenon 
in  light  seems  to  make  the  term  tone-color  a  desirable 
one,  and  it  will  be  adopted  in  this  book.  It  has  been 
discovered  that  such  tones  as  constitute  material  for 
the  art  of  sound '  are  not  simple,  but  are  made  up  of 
subordinate  tones,  much  as  the  color  purple  consists 
of  two  other  colors  —  red  and  violet  —  in  combina- 
tion, and  as  many  other  hues  are  formed  by  combining 
different  tints.  The  complete  physical  explanation  of 
this  phenomenon  would  require  much  more  space  than 
can  be  given  here ;  but  a  partial  insight  into  its  nature 
may  be  gained  from  the  behavior  of  our  stretched 
string  when  plucked.  If  the  string  be  observed  closely, 
it  will  be  found  to  be  carrying  on  several  sets  of  vibra- 
tion at  the  same  time  :  it  is  not  only  vibrating  as  a 
whole  between  its  two  extreme  fixed  points,  but,  in 
consequence  of  the  reflections  to  and  fro  of  the  force 
applied  in  plucking  the  string  —  which  runs  along  the 
string  to  the  fixed  end,  and  is  then  reflected  along 
the  string,  thence  back  again,  and  so  on — certain  other 
practically-fixed  points  are  set  up,  and  the  string  actu- 
ally vibrates  in  smaller  segments  between  these  points 
—  called  "  nodes  of  vibration  "  —  as  if  it  consisted  of 

1  This  term,  "the  art  of  sound,"  is  used  as  designating  a  genus,  of 
which  music  and  verse  are  the  two  species.  Purposes  of  the  utmost 
value  to  the  present  system  are  subserved  by  discussinc;,  as  the  reader 
observes  is  being  done,  this  genus  until  a  point  is  reached  where  the 
differentiation  of  the  two  species  sharply  presents  itself.  They  will  be 
found  separated  by  a  line  much  less  broad  than  has  been  commonly  sup- 
posed. 


30  Science  of  English   Verse. 

several  shorter  strings  :  now  each  of  these  segments 
vibrates  at  a  different  rate  per  second  from  the  rate  of 
the  whole  string,  and  therefore  makes  a  tone  different 
in  pitch  (see  the  last  paragraph)  from  that  of  the  whole 
string  which  is  called  the  "fundamental  tone:"  so  that 
the  tone  made  by  each  segment  combines  with  the  fun- 
damental tone  and  all  are  heard  by  the  ear  as  one  tone. 
But,  while  heard  as  one  tone  along  with  the  fundamen- 
tal tone,  the  segment-tones  influence  the  resulting  tone 
in  a  manner  very  striking  to  the  ear  according  as  they 
are  more  numerous  in  some  vibrating  bodies  than  in 
others,  or  according  as  one  segment-tone  becomes  (as 
is  found  to  be  the  case)  more  prominent  in  some  bodies 
than  in  others.  It  is  found,  for  instance,  that  when  the 
vibrating  body  is  the  column  of  air  in  a  flute,  instead  of 
a  string,  the  column  of  air  presents  a  different  set  of 
segment-tones  (or  "harmonics,"  or  "partial  tones,"  as 
they  are  variously  called)  from  the  set  presented  by  the 
string ;  and  it  is  precisely  this  difference  which  enables 
our  ear  to  recognize  the  flute-tone  as  distinct  from  the 
string-tone.  So  of  all  instruments  :  the  reed-instru- 
ments, such  as  the  clarinet,  hautboy,  and  bassoon,  cause 
the  air  within  them  to  vibrate  in  different  sets  of  seg- 
ments from  the  air  in  a  flute,  or  a  horn,  and  from  the 
string  of  a  violin  :  each  segment  giving  its  own  tone, 
the  different  sets  of  segments  give  different  resulting 
tones,  that  is,  different  tone-colors :  and  it  is  by  these 
different  tone-colors  that  we  discriminate  flute  from 
violin,  horn  from  clarinet,  and  the  like,  when  they  are 
played  out  of  our  sight.  This  principle  makes  such  deli- 
cate shades  of  variations  that  even  instruments  of  the 
same  class  differ  from  each  other  very  strikingly  in  this 
particular,  so  that  of  two  violins  we  often  prefer  the 


Dependence  of  Speech  on   Tone-color.        3 1 

"tone"  (by  which  we  mean  the  "tone-color")  of  one  to 
the  other,  and  so  of  two  flutes,  two  pianos,  and  the  like. 
The  delicate  distinctions  due  to  tone-color  reach  a 
most  interesting  phase,  which  is  specially  used  through- 
out the  present  treatise,  in  language.  It  has  been  found 
that  the  ability  of  the  ear  to  discriminate  one  vowel- 
sound  from  another,  and  one  consonant-sound  from 
another,  is  due  to  the  fact  that  the  vowels  and  conso- 
nants differ  from  each  other  in  tone-color  just  as  violin- 
tones  differ  from  flute-tones,  or  from  reed-tones,  in 
tone-color.  The  human  voice  is  practically  a  reed- 
instrument  of  the  hautboy  class,  the  vocal  chords 
being  the  two  thin  vibrating  reeds,  and  the  mouth  and 
throat  (the  buccal  cavity)  constituting  the  tube.  Now 
it  is  found  that  the  tone-color  of  wind-instruments 
will  vary  according  to  the  shape  of  their  tubes  :  a  col- 
umn of  air  vibrating  in  a  tube  like  that  of  the  clari- 
net, for  instance,  gives  a  different  set  of  prominent 
segment-tones,  that  is,  a  different  tone-color,  from  a 
column  in  a  tube  like  that  of  the  flute.  It  is  thus 
that  the  voice  produces  those  sounds  of  differing  tone- 
color  which  we  call  vowels  and  consonants ;  for  the 
voice  is  a  reed-instrument  which  can  alter  the  shape  of 
its  tube  (the  buccal  cavity)  at  pleasure,  and  which  in  so 
doing  alters  its  tone-color  at  pleasure.  The  general 
fact  that  we  alter  the  shape  of  the  mouth  and  throat  in 
pronouncing  each  vowel  and  consonant  must  lie  within 
the  observation  of  every  person.  The  precise  proof, 
however,  that  tone-color  is  the  principle  by  which  we 
discriminate  the  constituent  sounds  of  speech,  and  the 
scientific  analysis  of  the  phenomenon,  constitute  one 
of  the  most  brilliant  achievements  of  modern  science, 
which  should  not  be  mentioned  without  specifying  the 


32  Science  of  English   Verse. 

names  of  Charles  Wheatstone,  who  first  suggested  the 
idea,  and  of  Helmholtz,  who  demonstrated  it  in  a  series 
of  the  most  beautiful  studies  and  experiments  ever 
made. 

The  fact  that  each  vowel-tone  in  speech  is  compound, 
being  the  resultant  of  a  number  of  subsidiary  tones  in 
combination  ;  the  fact  that  now  one,  now  another,  of 
these  subsidiary  tones  comes  into  prominence  according 
as  we  alter  the  shape  of  the  mouth-cavity,  and  thus 
varies  the  tone-color  of  the  voice  ;  and  the  fact  that  our 
ear  recognizes  a  certain  tone-color  as  the  vowel  a, 
another  as  the  vowel  e,  another  as  the  vowel  i,  another 
as  the  vowel  o,  another  as  the  vowel  u:  were  estab- 
lished and  verified  in  a  complete  manner  by  Helmholtz, 
who  applied  the  principle  in  constructing  an  apparatus 
of  tubes  and  membranes  which  imitated  several  of  the 
vowels  with  much  exactness. 

To  sum  up  the  results  of  this  division,  therefore : 
whenever,  in  discussing  the  general  art  of  sound,  the 
term  tone-color  is  used,  it  should  bring  into  the  reader's 
mind  the  principle  of  segmentary  or  partial  vibrations 
which  combine  with  the  fundamental  vibrations  (of  a 
string  or  of  a  column  of  air  in  an  instrumental  tube)  to 
form  a  composite  tone,  —  as  different  light-vibrations 
combine  to  form  a  composite  color,  like  purple,  —  result- 
ing in  that  peculiar  set  of  differences  by  which  we  dis- 
criminate flute-tone  from  violin-tone,  horn-tone  from 
clarinet-tone,  a  from  o,  i  from  u. 

The  following,  then,  comprise  all  the  possible  rela- 
tions between  sounds,  namely:  (i)  the  relative  duration 
of  sounds,  in  which  the  reader  must  carefully  remember 
to  include  the  correlative  duration  of  the  silences  between 
sounds,  which  are  called  "  rests,"  and  which  are  quite  as 


Indefinite  Comparison  of  Sounds.          33 

necessary  to  many  forms  of  verse  as  are  the  sounds 
thereof ;  (2)  the  relative  intensity  of  sounds ;  (3)  the 
relative  pitch  of  sounds  ;  and  (4)  the  relative  tone-color 
of  sounds. 

It  will  now  be  useful  to  combine  the  two  last  propo- 
sitions in  a  statement  made  from  a  different  point 
of  view.  A  formal  poem  is  ahvays  composed  of  such 
sounds  and  silences  '  (or  of  the  signs,  or  of  the  concep- 
tions, of  such  sounds  and  silences)  as  can  be  co-ordinated 
by  the  ear. 

By  "  sounds  which  can  be  co-ordinated  by  the  ear " 
are  meant  sounds  which  the  ear  can  perceive  with 
such  clearness  that  it  is  able  to  compare  them  with 
reference  to  some  one  or  more  particulars.  For  exam- 
ple, if,  in  strolling,  we  hear  first  the  quick  chirp  of  a 
sparrow  and  then  the  slow  shrilling  of  the  field-cricket 
in  the  grass,  our  ear  can  compare  the  two  sounds  as  to 
time,  and  can  decide  that  the  latter  is  longer  than  .the 
former :  that  is  to  say,  the  ear  can  co-ordinate  these  two 
sounds  with  reference  to  the  particular  of  their  duration. 

Again  :  if,  immediately  afterwards,  we  hear  the  cry  of 
a  jay,  our  ear  can  compare  it  with  the  previous  sounds 
as  to  the  point  of  loudness,  and  can  decide  that  the  jay's 
sound  is  louder  than  the  other  two  :  that  is  to  say,  the 
ear  can  co-ordinate  these  three  sounds  with  reference  to 
the  particular  of  their  intensity. 

1  These  "silences"  are  included  in  Proposition  I,  under  the  term 
"specially  related  sounds."  For  example,  if  a  couplet  of  sounds  be 
separated  by  a  silence  of  one  minute  in  duration,  while  another  couplet 
is  separated  by  a  silence  of  two  minutes  in  duration,  these  differing  silences 
constitute  an  independent  means  of  comparison  between  the  two  couplets  ; 
and,  as  such,  the  measured  silence  or  rest  may  be  considered  one  species 
of  relations  between  sounds  with  sufficient  accuracy  for  a  proposition  in 
which  the  most  general  terms  are  desirable. 


34  Science  of  English   Verse. 

Again  :  if  we  now  hear  in  succession  the  grave  coo 
of  a  dove  and  the  keen  piping  of  a  field-lark,  our  ear 
can  compare  them  as  to  the  point  of  their  relative  shrill- 
ness or  trebleness,  and  can  decide  that  the  latter  is 
the  shriller,  or  more  treble,  of  the  two  :  that  is  to  say,  the 
ear  can  co-ordinate  these  two  sounds  with  reference  to 
the  particular  of  their  pitch. 

Again  :  if  we  now  hear  in  succession  the  whirr  of 
the  grasshopper  poised  above  the  grass  and  the  whistle 
of  the  partridge  down  the  field,  our  ear  can  compare  the 
two  sounds  as  to  the  point  of  tone-color,  and  can  decide 
that  the  grasshopper's  note  is  somewhat  like  the  low 
tones  of  the  clarinet  (having  a  certain  fluttering  quality 
characteristic  of  the  reed-instruments),  while  the  par- 
tridge's note  has  more  likeness  to  the  smoother  flute : 
that  is  to  say,  the  ear  can  co-ordinate  these  two  tones 
with  reference  to  the  particular  of  their  tone-color. 

The  foregoing  are  examples  of  the  general  co-ordi- 
nation, or  indefinite  comparison,  of  sounds.  But  the 
reader  is  now  asked  to  observe  that  in  none  of  the 
instances  given  could  the  ear  make  any  exact  co-ordina- 
tion, or  definite  measurement,  of  the  sounds  compared. 
To  recur  to  the  first  example :  while  the  ear  could 
recognize  that  the  song  of  the  cricket  was  in  a  general 
way  longer  than  that  of  the  sparrow,  it  was  unable  to 
pronounce  exactly  how  many  times  as  long.  So,  in  the 
second  example,  though  we  could  say  immediately  that 
the  jay's  cry  was  more  intense  —  that  is,  louder — than 
the  sparrow's,  we  could  not  say  how  much  more  intense. 
In  the  third  example,  while  we  could  pronounce  the 
field-lark's  note  certainly  higher  in  pitch  than  the 
dove's,  we  have  no  scale  of  degrees,  like  the  musical 
scale,  to  which  we  could  refer  these  two  tones  and  as- 


Definite   Comparison  of  Sounds.  35 

certain  their  precise  distance  from  each  other,  or  musi- 
cal "  interval."  And  finally,  in  the  fourth  example,  while 
the  tone-color  of  the  grasshopper's  whirr  is  sufficiently 
distinct  from  that  of  the  partridge's  whistle,  it  is  not  so 
distinct  as  to  admit  of  more  than  a  general  classification 
as  reedy. 

But  the  art  of  tone,  which  includes  the  art  of  mu- 
sic and  the  art  of  verse,  depends  upon  exact  co-ordina- 
tions by  the  ear.  It  is  therefore  necessary  for  us  to 
advance  beyond  the  consideration  of  such  sounds  as  are 
capable  merely  of  general  co-ordination,  or  indefinite 
comparison,  by  the  ear,  to  the  consideration  of  such 
sounds  as  are  further  capable  of  exact  co-ordination,  or 
definite  measurement,  by  the  ear. 

Let  it  be  here  noticed  that  in  the  preceding  propo- 
sitions all  that  has  been  said  generally  of  verse  ap- 
plies equally  to  music, — the  other  art  of  sound, — and 
that  this  will  be  the  case  for  several  propositions  to 
come ;  though  each  proposition  will  be  found  to  contain 
some  limitation  of  the  preceding  one,  so  that  we  can 
presently  arrive,  by  the  method  of  successive  limita- 
tions, at  a  point  where  a  single  step  will  separate  the 
definition  of  verse  from  that  of  music.  This  method 
is  of  importance.  It  will  presently  be  found  that 
the  sound-relations  which  constitute  music  are  the 
same  with  those  which  constitute  verse,  and  that  the 
main  distinction  between  music  and  verse  is,  when 
stated  with  scientific  precision,  the  difference  between 
the  scale  of  tones  used  in  music  and  the  scale  of  tones 
used  by  the  human  speaking-voice. 

But  this  is  by  anticipation.  It  is  now  necessary  to 
ascertain  what  are  the  capacities  of  the  ear  for  the 
definite  measurement,  or  exact  co-ordination,  of  sounds. 


36  Science  of  English   Verse. 

Stating  the  same  purpose  in  different  terms :  since  the 
four  particulars  mentioned  (duration,  intensity,  pitch, 
and  tone-color)  comprise  all  the  possible  variations  of 
sound  and  of  silence,  let  us  now  inquire  as  to  which  of 
these  particulars,  if  any,  the  ear  of  average  persons  has 
the  power  of  exactly  co-ordinating  sounds.  By  the  power 
of  exact  co-ordination  is  meant  the  power  of  conceiv- 
ing the  relations  of  sounds  in  terms  of  number,  or  in 
terms  of  degree.  Thus  if,  of  two  sounds  occupying  dif- 
ferent lengths  of  time,  the  ear  is  able  to  perceive  that 
one  was  exactly  twice  as  long  as  the  other,  it  may  be 
said  that  the  ear  has  exactly  co-ordinated,  or  definitely 
measured,  those  two  sounds  as  to  their  duration,  and  has 
conceived  the  result  in  terms  of  number.  If,  again,  any 
key  of  a  piano  be  struck,  and  then  another,  and  the  ear 
recognizes  the  latter  tone  as  lying  at  exactly  six  degrees 
(according  to  the  musical  scale  of  degrees)  above  the 
former,  it  may  be  said  that  the  ear  has  exactly  co-ordi- 
nated, or  definitely  measured,  these  two  sounds  with 
reference  to  their  pitch,  and  has  arrived  at  a  conception 
of  such  co-ordination  in  terms  of  a  precise  scale  of 
degrees.  These  illustrations  will  be  carried  farther  in 
the  next  proposition. 

Actual  observation  reveals  that  there  are  three  partic- 
ulars, and  only  three,  as  to  which  the  ear  has  the  power 
of  exactly  co-ordinating  sounds.  These  three  are  dura- 
tion, pitch,  and  tone-color. 

Example  of  exact  co-ordination  with  reference  to  the 
particular  of  duration.  If  a  musician  be  asked  to  strike 
any  key  of  a  piano  so  that  two  of  its  sounds  will  ex- 
actly fill  the  time  of  one  second,  as  marked  off  by  a  clock 
ticking  seconds,  he  is  able  to  do  so  without  trouble: 
if,  between  any  two  ticks  of  the  clock,  he  should  hold 


Examples  of  Exact  Co-ordination.  37 

the  key  down  longer  than  its  legitimate  time  of  half  a 
second,  the  deviation  from  the  proper  time  is  immedi- 
ately observed  :  if  he  be  told  to  make  four  sounds  to  the 
second,  instead  of  two,  he  distributes  them  thus  with 
ease :  indeed,  these  are  the  simplest  forms  of  example, 
and  the  musician  can  interpose  between  each  tick  of  the 
clock,  with  unerring  precision,  sounds  bearing  to  each 
other  much  more  complex  relations  of  duration.  It  is 
obvious  that  his  power  to  do  so,  as  well  as  the  power 
to  recognize  when  he  does  so,  depends  upon  the  remark- 
able capacity  of  the  ear  (affirmed  in  the  first  clause  of 
this  proposition)  to  co-ordinate  sounds  exactly  with  ref- 
erence to  their  duration. 

Example  of  exact  co-ordination  with  reference  to  the 
particular  of  pitch.  If  any  two  keys  of  a  piano  be 
struck  in  succession,  the  musician  will  immediately 
name  the  relation  of  the  latter  to  the  former  in  terms 
of  the  musical  scale,  by  his  ear  alone.  Thus  if  the 
first  key  struck  be  the  middle  C,  and  the  next  be  the 
second  white  key  to  the  right  of  it,  he  will  announce 
the  second  as  a  major  third  above  the  first,  or  E :  if 
the  second  key  struck  be  the  seventh  white  key  to  the 
right,  he  will  announce  it  as  the  octave  of  the  first ;  and 
so  on.  In  other  words,  the  human  ear  has  the  power 
of  exactly  co-ordinating  sounds  with  reference  to  the 
particular  of  pitch,  and  of  forming  precise  conceptions 
thereof  which  can  be  accurately  expressed  in  degrees 
of  the  musical  scale. 

Example  of  exact  co-ordination  with  reference  to  the 
particular  of  tone-color.  If  a  given  tone,  say  the  mid- 
dle C,  be  sounded  on  the  piano,  and  the  same  tone  — 
that  is  to  say,  a  tone  of  the  same  duration  (or  length), 
of  the  same  intensity  (or  loudness),  and  of  the  same 


38  Science  of  English    Verse. 

pitch — be  sounded  on  the  violin,  the  ear  instantly  recog- 
nizes a  difference  ;  if  the  same  tone  be  then 'sounded  on 
the  flute,  the  ear  recognizes  a  difference  from  both  the 
others ;  if  it  be  further  sounded  on  the  clarinet,  the  ear 
recognizes  a  difference  from  all  the  preceding.  This 
difference,  being  by  the  supposition  neither  a  differ- 
ence of  duration  nor  of  intensity  nor  of  pitch,  must 
belong  to  the  only  other  class  of  differences  of  which 
sounds  are  capable,  namely,  the  class  known  as  tone- 
color.  We  have  already  found  that  the  difference 
between  one  vowel-sound  and  another  in  speech  —  the 
difference  between  a,  for  instance,  and  o,  or  that  be- 
tween i  and  e — belongs  to  this  class  of  sound  relations. 
The  ability  of  the  ear  to  discriminate  the  most  delicate 
shades  of  difference  in  this  particular  constitutes  one  of 
the  most  remarkable  of  our  faculties,  and  leads  to  some 
very  interesting  fields  of  thought.  All  the  phenomena 
of  rhyme  and  of  alliteration,  and  several  allied  verse- 
effects  which  will  be  found  herein  treated  for  the  first 
time,  are  due  to  this  capacity  of  the  ear  for  exactly 
co-ordinating  sounds  with  reference  to  their  tone-color. 

While,  as  noted  in  the  last  proposition,  the  ear  is 
capable  of  exactly  co-ordinating  sounds  with  reference 
to  their  duration,  their  pitch,  and  their  tone-color,  it  is 
not  capable  of  exactly  co-ordinating  them  with  reference 
to  the  other  particular  mentioned  —  intensity.  We  have 
already  seen  that  a  general  or  inexact  co-ordination 
in  respect  of  intensity  was  possible :  indeed,  it  is  not  a 
matter  requiring  further  illustration,  that  of  two  given 
sounds  every  ear  can  in  a  general  way  pronounce  one 
to  be  louder  or  softer  than  the  other.  But  how  much 
louder  or  softer ;  whether  twice  as  loud,  or  three  times 
as  soft ;  whether  louder  or  softer  according  to  the  de- 


Intensity  an  Inexact  Relation.  39 

grees  of  any  given  scale  or  standard  of  measurement : 
for  such  exact  co-ordinations  of  intensity  in  sounds  the 
ear  has  no  means.  There  is  here  possible  neither  an 
appeal  to  terms  of  number,  as  when,  in  the  case  of 
duration,  we  can  say  that  two  sounds  occupying  a  given 
time  are  followed  by  two  sounds  occupying  exactly 
the  same  time,  and  so  on  ;  nor  an  appeal  to  a  given 
scale  of  degrees,  as  when,  in  the  case  of  pitch,  the 
musician's  ear  pronounces  definitely  the  relation  of  one 
tone  to  another  by  referring  them  to  the  fixed  degrees 
of  the  musical  scale  (which  is  really  a  kind  of  primor- 
dial tune,  always  carried  in  the  memory  of  the  ear,  and 
always  available  as  a  sort  of  graduated  auditory  yard- 
stick for  measurement) ;  nor,  finally,  an  appeal  to  those 
easily-preserved  and  fixed  conceptions  of  tone-color 
which  the  ear  retains,  and  by  which  it  compares  a  given 
tone  with  recollected  tones  so  as  instantly  to  recognize 
them  as  flute-tones,  as  piano-tones,  as  violin-tones,  and 
so  on.  We  have  no  standard  within  the  mind  for  the 
precise  measurement  of  intensity  in  sound ;  that  is,  the 
ear  is  not  capable  of  exactly  co-ordinating  sounds  with 
reference  to  the  particular  of  intensity. 

Since  an  art  of  sound  must  depend  primarily  upon 
exact  co-ordinations  by  the  ear,  and  since  these  exact  co- 
ordinations are,  as  just  shown,  possible  only  in  respect 
of  duration,  pitch,  and  tone-color,  it  is  evident  that  these 
three  sound-relations  constitute  three  distinct  principles 
to  one  or  the  other  of  which  all  the  primary  phe- 
nomena of  this  art  must  be  referred.  They  thus  afford 
us  three  fundamental  principles  of  classification  for  the 
effects  of  sound  in  art.  The  effects  ordinarily  known 
as  "  rhythm  "  depend  primarily  upon  duration  ; '  those 

1  For  detailed  proof  of  which  see  the  special  discussion  of  rhythm  in 
Part  I.  following. 


40  Science  of  English   Verse. 

known  as  "tune"  depend  upon  pitch;  those  known  as 
"colors  "  in  music,  and  as  "rhymes  "  and  "alliterations" 
in  verse, — besides  many  allied  effects  of  verse  which 
have  never  been  named,  —  depend  upon  tone-color. 
Stated  in  other  terms  :  — 

I. 

When  the  ear  exactly  co-ordinates  a  series  of  sounds 
and  silences  with  primary  reference  to  their  dura- 
tion, the  result  is  a  conception  of  .  .  .  .  RHYTHM. 

II. 

When  the  ear  exactly  co-ordinates  a  series  of  sounds 
with  primary  reference  to  their  pitch,  the  result  is 
a  conception  of TUNE. 

III. 

When  the  ear  exactly  co-ordinates  a  series  of  sounds 
with  primary  reference  to  their  tone-color,  the  re- 
sult is  a  conception  of  (in  music,  flute-tone  as  dis- 
tinct from  violin-tone,  and  the  like ;  in  verse,  rhyme 
as  opposed  to  rhyme,  vowel  varied  with  vowel,  pho- 
netic syzygy,  and  the  like),  in  general  .  .  .  TONE-COLOR. 

The  term  "  primary  reference "  in  the  last  proposi- 
tion hints  at  a  secondary  use  which  is  made,  not  only 
of  the  inexact  relation,  intensity,  but  also  of  the  three 
exact  relations,  in  the  art  of  sound.  As  soon  as  this 
secondary  use  is  explained, — as  will  now  be  done, — 
actual  illustrations  of  all  the  preceding  abstract  propo- 
sitions can  be  given,  which  will  clear  them  of  obscurity. 

The  secondary  use  of  the  four  relations — duration, 
intensity,  pitch,  and  tone-color  —  occurs  only  by  way 
of  adjunct  in  that  great  class  of  sound-effects  marked  I. 
above,  —  the  class  known  as  rhythm. 

For  the  purpose  of  enabling  the  ear  to  make  exact 
co-ordinations  of  a  long  and  complex  series  of  sounds 


Secondary  Use  of  the  Four  Relations.      41 

with  reference  to  their  duration,  it  becomes  convenient 
to  arrange  the  sounds  so  that  the  whole  body  may  be 
grouped  by  the  ear  into  smaller  bodies  which  can  be,  as 
it  were,  handled  with  more  ease.  It  is  to  effect  this 
grouping  that  the  secondary  use  of  the  sound-relations 
is  made.  How  they  are  employed  for  this  purpose  will 
appear  from  the  following  illustration,  which  is  arranged 
with  two  purposes  :  one,  to  explain  certain  effects  upon 
the  ear  which  have  been  greatly  misconceived,  by  show- 
ing exactly  parallel  effects  upon  the  eye  which  no  one 
ever  confuses  ;  and  the  other,  to  begin  acquainting  the 
student  with  the  musical  system  of  notation  —  a  system 
which  is  adequate  to  all  the  phenomena  of  rhythm,  that 
is,  adequate  to  express  in  visible  characters  all  the  con- 
ceptions which  result  when  the  ear  co-ordinates  a  series 
of  sounds  with  primary  reference  to  their  duration  and 
with  secondary  reference  to  any  or  all  the  other  sound- 
relations. 

The  following  scheme  presents  a  series  of  eight  char- 
acters exactly  similar  in  size  and  in  distance  apart  :  — 

r    r    r    r    r    r    r    r. 

Let  it  be  proposed  to  mark  off  for  the  eye  groups  of  two 
characters  each  along  the  whole  scries.  This  might  be 
done  in  several  ways.  For  example,  we  might  make 
the  stem  of  the  first  character  longer  than  that  of  the 
second,  and  repeat  this  variation  through  the  series  :  — 


r  '  f  '  \  '  f 

or  we  might  begin  with  the  second  character,  and  effect 
the  same  result  by  lengthening  every  second  stem  in  the 
series  :  — 


42  Science  of  English   Verse. 

•  \  {  \  r  r  '  r 

either  method  dividing  the  series  for  the  eye  into 
groups,  of  two  characters  in  each.  It  is  obvious  that 
we  might  have  effected  the  same  grouping  for  the  eye 
by  shortening-  either  every  first  or  every  second  stem  in 
each  group,  or,  in  general,  by  any  recurrent  variation 
in  length.  Further  :  we  might  apply  the  same  method, 
not  to  the  characters,  but  to  the  distances  between 
them.  Thus  we  might  mark  them  off  into  groups  for 
the  eye  by  lengthening  or  shortening,  or  in  any  way 
consistently  varying,  the  spaces  between  the  couplets ; 

r  r     r   r     r   r     r  r 

that  is  to  say,  in  general,  a  series  of  characters  may 
be  marked  off  into  groups  for  the  eye  by  any  recurrent 
variation  in  length,  either  of  the  characters,  or  of  the 
spaces  between  them. 

Before  proceeding  to  other  methods  of  grouping,  let 
us  now  transfer  these  conceptions  of  the  eye  to  the  ear. 
Suppose  the  eight  characters  used  above  to  be  eight 
signs  of  sounds,  as  they  in  fact  are,  being  the  "  quar- 
ter-notes "  of  the  musical  system  of  noting  rhythm  to 
be  presently  explained  in  full.  Now  the  series  of  eight 
sounds  represented  by  eight  such  characters  could  be 
marked  off  into  groups  of  two  each  for  the  ear,  just  as 
the  characters  themselves  were  marked  off  for  the  eye, 
either  by  varying  the  length  of  every  second  sound  (as 
we  varied  the  length  of  every  second  sound-sign),  or 
by  varying  the  length  of  the  interval  of  silence  between 
every  two  sounds,  as  we  varied  the  length  of  the  dis- 
tance between  the  couplets  of  sound-signs. 


Grouping  by  Duration  and  Intensity.      43 

Thus  the  ear,  having  co-ordinated  a  series  of  eight 
sounds  with  primary  reference  to  their  duration,  and 
having  thus  set  up  what  we  may  call  a  primary  rhyth- 
mus  among  the  individual  units  of  sound,  may  again  co- 
ordinate the  same  sounds  with  secondary  reference  to 
their  duration  in  order  to  divide  them  into  groups  of  two 
or  more  units ;  each  group  being  distinguished  by  some 
variation  in  the  duration  of  either  of  its  sounds,  or  in 
the  duration  of  the  silences  between  them. 

But  again  recurring  to  the  eight  characters  as  mere- 
ly visible  signs :  they  might  be  marked  off  into  groups 
for  the  eye  by  variations  in  their  intensity.  Suppose, 
for  example,  the  first  be  printed  in  ink  of  an  intenser 
black  than  the  second,  and  this  variation  be  consistent- 
ly carried  on  through  the  eight :  — 

r  r     r  r     r  r     r  r 

It  is  obvious,  without  carrying  this  process  through 
the  details  of  the  last,  that  a  grouping  could  be  marked 
off  for  the  eye  by  any  recurring  variation  of  intensity. 
It  is  easy  to  transfer  this  process,  as  before,  from  the 
eye  to  the  ear. 

Given  a  series  of  eight  sounds  already  co-ordinated 
by  the  ear  with  reference  to  their  duration,  and  thus 
already  established  as  primarily  rhythmical  :  such  a 
series  could  be  marked  off  into  groups  by  making  any 
sound  of  each  group  louder  or  softer  than  the  other 
sound  or  sounds  of  that  group,  that  is,  by  any  recurrent 
variation  in  the  intensity  of  that  sound.  Here  it  may 
be  seen  how  the  exact  co-ordinations  which  were  neces- 
sary to  the  artistic  use  of  the  other  sound-relations, 
duration,  pitch,  and  tone-color,  arc  not  necessary  in  this 
use  of  intensity,  which,  we  found,  cannot  be  exactly  co- 


44  Science  of  English   Verse. 

ordinated  by  the  ear ;  for  the  use  of  intensity  in  group- 
ing sounds  does  not  require  exact  co-ordination.  If,  for 
example,  every  second  sound  in  the  series  be  in  any 
degree  louder  or  softer  than  its  fellow,  the  series  will 
be  grouped  into  twos ;  if  every  third  sound  be  in  any 
degree  louder  or  softer  than  its  adjacent  two,  the  series 
will  be  grouped  into  threes,  and  so  on  ;  no  particular 
degree  of  intensity  being  needed  for  the  mere  purpose  of 
making  the  ear  notice  every  second,  every  third,  every 
fourth  sound,  and  so  on. 

Here,  too,  an  important  additional  consideration  may 
now  be  mentioned,  namely,  that  both  these  methods 
(or,  as  we  shall  afterwards  see,  any  three  or  all  four 
of  the  methods)  may  be  used  at  once,  to  give  greater 
distinctness  to  the  grouping  of  sounds  for  the  ear. 
It  is  easy  to  see  that  in  grouping  the  above-men- 
tioned eight  characters  for  the  eye,  we  might  both 
vary  the  stem  and  vary  the  blackness  (intensity)  of 
every  other  character,  and  so  group  them  into  twos  by 
both  the  methods  of  duration  and  intensity ;  and,  simi- 
larly, we  can  group  the  corresponding  series  of  sounds 
into  twos  by  making  every  other  sound  both  longer 
(duration)  and  louder  (intensity),  or  both  shorter  (dura- 
tion) and  softer  (intensity)  :  in  short  by  varying  every 
other  sound  in  both  the  particulars  of  duration  and  in- 
tensity. So  we  might  group  into  threes,  fours,  &c.,  by 
varying  every  third,  fourth,  &c.,  sound  in  both  these 
particulars.  Of  course,  such  a  grouping  would  be  all 
the  more  strikingly  marked  off  for  the  ear  by  the  use 
of  the  two  methods  to  distinguish  the  leading  sound  in 
each  group. 

But,  to  recur  to  the  eight  characters  as  affecting  the 
sense  of  sight :  they  might  be  marked  off  into  groups 


Secondary  Grouping  by  Pitch.  45 

for  the  eye  by  making  every  second,  third,  fourth,  &c., 
character  higher  or  lower  than  the  rest  of  its  group. 
Thus  the  scheme 


r    r  r    r  —  r~ 

plainly  divides  the  eight  into  two  groups  of  four  by 
making  the  first  a  little  higher  than  the  next  three,  and 
so  on.  Transferring  to  the  sense  of  hearing  :  we  might 
group  these  eight  sounds  for  the  ear  by  making  every 
first,  second,  third,  &c.,  sound  higher  or  lower  in  pitch 
than  its  neighbor  or  neighbors.  Thus  we  make  a  secon- 
dary use  of  pitch  in  grouping  sounds  for  rhythm,  which 
may  be  at  the  same  time  primarily  co-ordinated  by  the 
ear  with  reference  to  the  same  relation,  —  pitch,  —  for  a 
wholly  different  purpose,  namely,  tune  —  always  the  pri- 
mary conception  resulting  from  any  change  of  pitch. 

It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  say  that  this  method,  as 
before,  can  be  superadded  to  the  others  ;  that  is  to  say, 
a  series  of  sounds  and  silences  already  co-ordinated 
primarily  with  reference  to  duration,  to  establish  their 
general  rhythmic  nature,  may  be  secondarily  co-ordi- 
nated or  grouped  (and  it  may  be  well  to  notice  that 
these  two  terms,  "secondary  co-ordination"  and  "group- 
ing," are  always  convertible)  by  making  any  given 
sound  —  say  the  first  in  every  group  of  two,  the  second 
in  every  group  of  three,  and  so  on  —  vary  from  the  rest 
of  its  group  in  all  the  three  particulars  of  duration,  inten- 
sity, and  of  pitch.  Of  course,  each  superimposed  varia- 
tion upon  a  given  sound  would  attract  the  ear's  attention 
to  the  recurrence  of  that  sound  all  the  more  strongly. 

It  remains  to  notice  the  possible  secondary  use  of 
the  only  other  sound-relation,  tone-color,  in  grouping 


46  Science  of  English   Verse. 

sounds.  The  illustration  as  to  the  eye  readily  sug- 
gests that  the  eight  notes  might  be  grouped  for  the 
sense  of  sight  by  making  every  second,  third,  &c., 
note  of  a  certain  color,  say  red,  while  the  other  note 
or  notes  of  each  group  were  blue.  It  is  easy  to  see 
that  we  could  group  our  eight  sounds  in  any  manner  we 
pleased  by  the  similar  process  of  a  recurrent  variation 
in  tone-color.  Suppose,  for  example,  that  the  first  tone 
should  be  struck  on  the  piano,  the  next  three  on  a 
guitar,  the  next  on  the  piano,  the  next  three  on  the 
guitar,  &c.,  the  series  of  sounds  would  necessarily 
divide  itself  for  the  ear  into  two  groups  of  four,  the 
varying  tone-color  of  the  piano  from  that  of  the  guitar 
serving  to  effect  the  division.  In  the  case  of  verse  this 
varying  tone-color  would  take  the  form  of  a  recurrent 
vowel-sound,  a  recurrent  rhyme,  and  the  like  tone-colors. 

It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  add  that  this  secondary  use 
of  tone-color  in  grouping  sounds  can  be  superimposed 
upon  the  three  others.  In  the  grouping  into  fours  last 
suggested,  for  example,  each  controlling  tone  struck  on 
the  piano  might  be  both  longer  (duration),  louder  (inten- 
sity), and  higher  (pitch)  than  the  three  struck  on  the 
guitar.  Rhythmic  groups  thus  marked  off  would  of  course 
command  the  ear's  attention  in  a  very  powerful  way. 

We  have  now  reached  a  point  where  we  can  profit- 
ably inquire  as  to  the  precise  differentiation  between 
the  two  species  of  the  art  of  sound  —  music  and  verse. 
We  have  -found  that  the  art  of  sound,  in  general,  em- 
braces phenomena  of  rhythm,  of  tune,  and  of  tone-color. 
Many  will  be  disposed  to  think  that  the  second  class  of 
these  phenomena  just  named  —  tune  —  is  not  found  in 
verse,  and  that  the  absence  of  it  should  be  one  of  the 
first  differences  to  be  noted  as  between  music  and  verse. 


Difference  between  Music  and  Verse.        47 

Tune  is,  however,  quite  as  essential  a  constituent  of 
verse  as  of  music  ;  and  the  disposition  to  believe  other- 
wise is  due  only  to  the  complete  unconsciousness  with 
which  we  come  to  use  these  tunes  after  the  myriad 
repetitions  of  them  which  occur  in  all  our  daily  inter- 
course by  words.  We  will  presently  find,  from  numer- 
ous proofs  and  illustrations  which  are  submitted  in  Part 
IL,  on  the  Tunes  of  Verse,  that  our  modern  speech  is 
made  up  quite  as  much  of  tunes  as  of  words,  and  that 
our  ability  to  convey  our  thoughts  depends  upon  the 
existence  of  a  great  number  of  curious  melodies  of 
speech  which  have  somehow  acquired  form  and  signifi- 
cance. These  "  tunes  "  are  not  mere  vague  variations 
of  pitch  in  successive  words,  —  which  would  deserve 
the  name  of  tune  only  in  the  most  general  sense  of 
that  term, — but  they  are  perfectly  definite  and  organ- 
ized melodies  of  the  speaking-voice,  composed  of  exact 
variations  of  pitch  so  well  marked  as  to  be  instantly 
recognized  by  every  ear.  If  they  were  not  thus  recog- 
nized a  large  portion  of  the  ideas  which  we  now 
convey  with  ease  would  be  wholly  inexpressible.  Re- 
serving, then,  all  details  upon  this  matter  until  their 
appropriate  place  under  the  head  of  the  Tunes  of 
Verse,  in  Part  II.  above  cited,  it  will  be  sufficient  here 
if  the  reader  is  asked  to  realize  them  in  a  practical 
way  by  first  attempting  to  utter  any  significant  sen- 
tences of  prose  or  verse  in  an  absolutely  unchanging 
voice  from  beginning  to  end.  This  will  be  found  quite 
difficult,  and  when  successfully  executed  produces  an 
impression  of  strangeness  which  all  the  more  clearly 
illustrates  how  habitually  and  how  unconsciously  the 
tunes  of  speech  are  used.  If,  having  uttered  the  sen- 
tences in  a  rigidly  unvarying  tone,  the  reader  will  then 


48  Science  of  English   Verse. 

utter  them  in  the  tunes  which  we  feel  —  by  some  inward 
perceptions  too  subtle  for  treatment  here  —  to  be  appro- 
priate to  them,  it  will  be  easily  seen  that  definite  suc- 
cessions of  tones  are  being  used,  —  so  definite  that  they 
are  kept  in  mind  for  their  appropriate  occasions  just  as 
words  are,  and  so  regular  in  their  organizations  as  to  be 
in  all  respects  worthy  the  name  of  "tunes,"  instead  of 
the  vague  terms  "intonation,"  or  "inflection,"  which 
have  so  long  concealed  the  real  function  of  these  won- 
derful melodies  of  the  speaking-voice. 

The  art  of  verse,  then,  as  well  as  the  art  of  music,  — 
the  two  species  of  the  genus  art  of  sound,  —  includes 
all  the  three  great  classes  of  phenomena  summed  up 
under  the  terms  rhythm,  tune,  and  tone-color.  We  will 
presently  find  many  problems  solved  by  the  full  recog- 
nition of  this  fact  that  there  is  absolutely  no  difference 
between  the  sound-relations  used  in  music  and  those 
used  in  verse. 

If  this  be  true,  —  if  the  sound-relations  of  music  and 
verse  are  the  same,  —  we  are  necessarily  forced  to  look 
for  the  difference  between  the  two  arts  in  the  nature 
of  the  sounds  themselves  with  which  they  deal.  Here, 
indeed,  the  difference  lies.  Expressed,  as  far  as  possi- 
ble, in  popular  terms,  it  is  as  follows  :  — 

When  those  exact  co-ordinations  which  the  ear  perceives 
as  rhythm,  tune,  and  tone-color,  are  suggested  to  the  ear 
by  a  series  of  musical  sounds,  the  result  is  .  .  Music. 

When  those  exact  co-ordinations  which  the  ear  perceives 
as  rhythm,  tune,  and  tone-color,  are  suggested  to  the  ear 
by  a  series  of  spoken  -words,  the  result  is  ...  VERSE. 

But  it  is  necessary  to  attain  a  very  much  more 
philosophical  view  of  the  relation  between  "  musical 
sounds  "  and  "  words  "  than  is  generally  implied  in  the 


)  Strictly  Musical  Sounds.  49 

popular  use  of  those  terms  ;  for  a  slight  examination 
will  show  that  words  are  themselves  musical  sounds. 
They  are  the  results  of  regular  vibrations  ;  they  are 
capable  of  the  exactest  co-ordination  in  respect  of  their 
duration,  their  pitch,  and  their  tone-color ;  they  are 
capable  of  as  exact  co-ordination  in  respect  of  their 
intensity  (loudness  or  softness)  as  any  other  sounds ; 
they  give  pleasure  to  the  ear  by  their  fall :  in  short, 
without  here  attempting  a  definition  of  musical  sounds, 
it  must  be  said  that  from  a  scientific  point  of  view 
there  is  no  incident  of  them  which  is  not  also  an 
incident  of  words.  For  all  purposes  of  verse,  words  are 
unquestionably  musical  sounds  produced  by  a  reed- 
instrument —  the  human  voice.  It  must  therefore  be 
clearly  understood  by  the  reader  that,  in  the  above 
distinction  between  music  and  verse,  what  are  called 
musical  sounds  are  only  one  set  out  of  the  possible 
body  of  musical  sounds ;  while  what  are  called  words 
are  another  set ;  that  is,  that  "  words  "  (in  the  sense  of 
the  above  distinction)  means  simply  one  kind  of  musical 
sounds,  and  "musical  sounds"  means  simply  another 
kind.  It  is  to  be  regretted  that  our  language  does  not 
afford  us  more  precise  terms  for  these  purposes.  Music, 
although  a  very  old  art,  has  only  recently  been  inves- 
tigated by  exact  methods  :  the  same  may  be  said  of 
poetry ;  and  it  is  probably  owing  to  this  circumstance 
that  we  have  no  terms  which  embody  precise  relations 
between  spoken  words  and  musical  tones.  The  terms 
"  vocal  "  and  "  instrumental "  are  not  satisfactory,  be- 
cause they  hide  one  of  the  most  important  facts  to  be 
kept  in  view  in  all  such  investigations  as  the  present, 
namely,  the  purely  instrumental  character  of  the  speak- 
ing-voice and  of  its  tones  (words).  "  Vocal "  here  is 


50  Science  of  English   Verse. 

"instrumental."  Let  the  reader  always  conceive,  first, 
a  general  body  of  musical  tones ;  then  let  the  speaking- 
voice  be  conceived  as  an  instrument  consisting  of  a 
tube  (the  mouth,  nose,  and  throat)  and  a  pair  of  reeds 
(the  vocal  chords),  which  produces  a  certain  set  of  these 
musical  sounds.  It  is  true  that  this  certain  set  has  re- 
ceived a  special  name,  "words,"  because  it  has  come  to 
be  used  for  a  special  purpose,  namely,  that  of  commu- 
nicating ideas  from  man  to  man.  It  will  assist  the 
reader  to  a  clearer  conception  of  this  matter,  if  the  fact 
be  called  to  mind  that  the  selection  of  vocal  sounds  for 
the  purpose  of  communicating  ideas  was  not  at  all  a 
necessary  one.  Other  sets  of  musical  sounds  might  have 
been  selected  for  this  purpose,  those  of  whistles  or 
flutes,  for  instance ;  or  no  sounds  at  all  might  have  been 
used,  and  "words"  might  have  been  entirely  eye-signs, 
as  is  actually  the  case  with  the  deaf  and  dumb.  In 
fine,  when  the  term  "words"  is  used  as  describing  the 
peculiar  set  of  sounds  used  in  verse,  the  reader  must 
understand  it  merely  as  a  convenient  method  of  singling 
out  that  specialized  set  of  musical  sounds  made  by  the 
musical  instrument  called  "  the  human  speaking- voice." 

But  what,  then,  are  the  distinguishing  characteristics 
of  these  sounds  which  specialize  them  into  a  set  distinct 
from  the  general  body  of  musical  sounds  ? 

These  characteristics  are  two  :  (a)  the  generic  and 
specific  tone-colors  of  the  human  speaking-voice  ;  and 
(b}  the  peculiar  scale  of  tones  used  by  the  human 
speaking-voice. 

(a)  By  "the  generic  tone-color"  of  an  instrument 
let  us  understand  that  general  peculiarity  of  tone-color 
which  enables  us  to  distinguish  tones  made  upon  any 
instrument  of  that  class  as  distinguished  from  tones 


Generic  and  Specific  Tone-colors.  51 

made  upon  any  instrument  of  a  different  class ;  for  in- 
stance, the  violin  has  its  generic  tone-color  as  distin- 
guished from  the  generic  tone-color  of  the  flute,  or  from 
the  generic  tone-color  of  the  piano.  But  subject  to 
this  general  resemblance  of  tone-color  among  all  the 
instruments  of  a  class,  enabling  us  to  distinguish  the 
violin-class,  the  flute-class,  the  piano-class,  &c.,  there 
exists  a  great  variety  of  minor  or  specific  tone-colors, 
which  not  only  distinguish  one  particular  instrument 
from  another  of  the  same  class,  but  even  the  tones 
evoked  from  the  same  instrument  by  two  different  play- 
ers. Thus  we  not  only  say,  "The  tone  of  this  violin  is 
better  than  that  one,  the  tone  of  this  piano  is  poorer 
than  that"  (the  "tone"  in  such  expressions  meaning  the 
tone-color) ;  but  we  say  of  two  persons  playing  on  the 
same  violin  or  piano,  "  I  like  So-and-So's  tone  better 
than  the  other's,"  and  so  on  ;  the  word  "  tone  "  always 
being  used  for  tone-color. 

But  —  and  this  is  the  point  to  which  the  foregoing 
considerations  have  been  gradually  bringing  the  read- 
er's notice  —  not  only  do  these  differences  of  tone- 
color  exist  as  between  instrument  and  instrument  of 
the  same  class,  and  as  between  player  and  player 
upon  the  same  instrument,  but  the  same  player  upon 
the  same  instrument  may  produce  tones  of  the  same 
pitch,  yet  of  different  tone-color;  and  the  tones  of  any 
instrument  differ  in  tone-color  as  they  are  high  or  low, 
or  made  upon  different  parts  of  the  instrument  Thus 
on  the  violin,  for  example,  a  player  may  make  the  tone 
D  cither  by  playing  the  next  to  the  lowest  string  open 
(that  is,  without  any  finger  on  that  string),  or  by  put- 
ting his  little  finger  in  the  First  Position  on  the  lowest 
string ;  but  the  two  D's  made  in  this  way  will  differ 


52  Science  of  English   Verse. 

greatly  in  tone-color.  Similarly,  on  the  piano,  if  the  D 
key  be  first  struck  with  a  short,  sharp  blow  by  the  fin- 
ger, and  then  with  a  lingering,  gradual  touch,  the  two 
tones  resulting,  though  the  same  in  pitch,  will  differ 
greatly  in  tone-color.  Now,  in  this  capacity  of  varying 
the  tone-color  of  sounds  made  on  the  same  instrument 
the  human  speaking-voice  is  very  wonderful,  and  excels 
all  other  instruments.  Every  vowel-sound,  every  con- 
sonant, every  combination  of  letters  in  a  syllable,  every 
shade  of  pronunciation,  is  simply  a  difference  of  tone- 
color  made  by  the  almost  instantaneous  changes  which 
the  muscles  of  the  mouth  and  throat  can  effect  in  the 
shape  of  the  buccal  cavity.  It  is  this  facility  in  the 
production  of  tone-colors  which  gives  the  human  vocal 
apparatus  pre-eminence  as  a  speech-instrument.  No 
other  instrument  could  be  devised  which  would  furnish 
such  a  copious  variety  of  elements  for  a  language  with 
such  ease  and  quickness. 

These  considerations  have  now  brought  us  to  a  prin- 
ciple which  will  be  largely  used  in  the  present  work, 
and  which  may  be  stated  as  follows  :  — 

Print  and  writing  are  systems  of  notation  for  the 
tone-colors  of  the  human  speaking-voice.  The  sign 
a,  for  instance,  gives  us  to  understand  a  tone-color 
produced  by  a  certain  adjustment  of  muscles  which 
we  have  all  learned  to  make  when  we  see  that  sign, 
and  which  results  in  a  certain  shape  of  the  buccal 
cavity,  giving  the  tone-color  indicated.  When  we  see 
the  sign  »,  we  understand  (though  we  have  clone  it 
so  often  as  to  become  wholly  unconscious  of  the  sepa- 
rate steps  of  the  process  unless  our  attention  is  specially 
fixed  on  them)  that  we  are  to  take  away  from  the  inner 
end  of  the  nostrils  the  membrane  which  divides  them 


Letters,  Signs  of  Tone-color.  53 

from  the  mouth-cavity  and  thus  add  the  length  of  the 
whole  nostril-tube  to  the  length  of  the  mouth-and-throat 
tube,  so  producing  that  hollow  and  resonant  tone-color 
which  we  associate  with  n. 

This  view  of  written  or  printed  letters  as  a  system 
of  notation  for  tone-color  brings  into  sharp  form  the 
difference  (a)  between  music  and  verse.  Music  has  no 
such  system  for  tone-color.  The  generic  tone-color  in 
music  is,  of  course,  indicated  by  stating  the  instrument 
upon  which  the  strain  is  to  be  played,  as  "  flute  "  for 
this  strain,  "  violin  "  for  that,  "  horn  "  for  another,  and 
so  on.  But  beyond  certain  marks  for  indicating  upon 
what  string  of  the  stringed  instruments  a  certain  strain 
is  to  be  played,  and  a  few  other  signs  which  more  or 
less  incidentally  convey  ideas  of  tone-color,  music  has  no 
system  of  tone-color  notation  ;  and  many  uses '  of  tone- 
color  are  made  in  verse  which  are  not  known  in  music. 

(b)  But  we  must  now  go  on  to  discuss  the  second 
above-mentioned  difference  between  music  and  verse, 
namely,  the  different  scale  of  tones  used  in  verse  from 
that  used  in  music.  It  is  this  difference  which  renders 
the  tunes  of  verse  so  much  more  subtle  than  those  of 
music. 

In  explaining  it :  the  reader  unfamiliar  with  music 
must  understand  that  that  art  does  not  use  by  any 
means  all  the  musical  tones  which  are  possible,  but  only 
a  particular  set  of  tones  which  have  been  chosen  out  of 
the  possible  body  of  tones  according  to  certain  prin- 
ciples of  selection.  A  list  of  the  particular  set  of  tones 
thus  chosen  is  called  a  "  scale."  This  may  be  illustrated 
in  the  following  manner  :  — 

1  See  particularly  the  uses  of  rhyme  and  alliteration  for  purely  rhythmic 
effects,  detailed  in  Part  I. 


54  Science  of  English   Verse. 

Consider  the  harp-shaped  frame  of  strings  arranged 
side  by  side  which  is  seen  when  the  top  of  a  piano- 
forte is  raised.  Upon  an  ordinary  piano  (tuned  usu- 
ally a  little  below  concert-pitch)  the  lowest  of  these 
strings  —  that  which  is  set  in  vibration  by  the  key  lying 
at  the  extreme  left  as  one  faces  the  piano  —  will  make 
about  twenty-four  vibrations  in  a  second ;  the  next 
string — that  which  is  set  in  vibration  by  the  shorter 
black  key  lying  next  to  the  first  —  will  make  about 
twenty-five  and  one-half  *  vibrations  per  second  ;  and  if 
one  should  go  on  striking  the  black  and  white  keys  in 
succession  until  the  first  thirteen  keys  were  struck,  the 
strings  thus  set  in  motion  would  execute  nearly2  the 
series  of  vibrations  presented  in  the  following  list :  — 

VIBRATIONS   IN 
STRING.  A  SECOND. 

I 24 

2 25% 

3 27 

4 28^ 

5 30 

6 32 

7 34 

8 36 

9 38 

10 40 

'I 42£ 

12 45 

13 48 

1  Of  course  it  would  be  out  of  place,  in  an  explanation  which  at  its 
simplest  is  somewhat  complex,  to  go  into  the  question  of  enharmonic  dif- 
ferences.    The  piano  was  selected  for  the  present  illustration  on  account 
of  the  clearness  afforded  by  carrying  out  its  theory  of  equal  temperament 
with  only  slight  inexactness. 

2  This  series  is  arranged  with  a  view  to  presenting  as  nearly  a  set  of 
round  numbers  as  possible,  small  fractions  being  rejected. 


Tones  omitted  in  Musical  Scale.  55 

But,  confining  the  attention  for  a  moment  to  the  thir- 
teen tones  produced  by  these  thirteen  rates  of  vibra- 
tion, it  is  clear  that  several  strings  might  be  stretched 
alongside  each  of  these  thirteen,  which  would  vibrate 
at  different  rates,  and  give  different  tones.  For  exam- 
ple, observe  that,  while  the  first  string  vibrates  24  times 
in  a  second,  the  next  string,  instead  of  vibrating  24^ 
times,  or  25  times,  in  a  second,  vibrates  25 \  times:  that 
is  to  say,  the  scale  omits  the  tones  produced  by  the 
possible  intermediate  rates  of  vibration  (24^,  25,  to  take 
no  smaller  fraction  than  £,  though,  of  course,  they 
might  be  24i,  24!,  24!,  25,  25  i,  and  so  on),  and  selects 
the  rate  25^  to  come  immediately  after  24.  And,  going 
on  with  this  argument,  the  next  tone  beyond  25 £  shows 
us  a  jump  over  the  possible  intermediate  rates  to  the 
rate  27  in  a  second ;  the  next  jumps  over  the  possible 
intermediate  rates  to  the  rate  28£  in  a  second;  and  so 
on,  until  the  jump  from  the  next  last  to  the  last  is  from 
45  in  a  second  to  48  in  a  second.  Now  these  jumps, 
which  proceed,  as  the  reader  easily  observes,  with  a 
certain  regularity,  show  us  the  principle  of  selection 
according  to  which  the  tones  of  the  scale  are  chosen 
by  the  European  ear.  The  procedure,  as  shown,  is  to 
start  with  a  given  tone  for  the  first,  and  take  for  the 
second  a  tone  which  is  to  the  first  as  25  £  is  to  24 ; 
for  the  third,  a  tone  which  is  to  the  first  as  27  is 
to  24;  and  so  on,  until  the  thirteenth  tone  is  to  the 
first  as  48  is  to  24,  that  is,  made  by  exactly  twice  as 
many  vibrations  as  the  first.  This  tone,  made  by 
twice  as  many  vibrations  as  the  first,  is  called  the 
"octave ; "  and,  when  we  reach  the  octave,  we  take  that 
tone  for  a  new  starting-point,  making  the  next  tone  bear 
to  it  the  proportion  which  exists  between  the  first  two 


56  Science  of  English   Verse. 

tones  considered,  that  is,  the  proportion  of  25  J  to  24; 
the  next  tone  must  be  to  the  octave  (48)  as  27  to  24; 
the  next  as  28^  to  24;  and  so  on  until  we  reach  the 
tone  represented  by  96  vibrations  to  the  second,  or  the 
octave  of  48  ;  then  we  repeat  the  same  proportions, 
until  we  have  tuned  all  the  strings  of  the  piano.  The 
first  octave,  it  will  be  noticed  (that  is,  the  first  thirteen 
tones  considered),  gave  all  the  proportions  necessary 
for  arranging  the  whole  scale  of  the  piano  according  to 
the  musical  principle  of  selection ;  and  the  series  of 
tones  included  in  thirteen I  successive  ones  thus  ar- 
ranged is  called  a  scale. 

In  short,  European  music  employs  only  a  small  por- 
tion of  the  tones  theoretically  capable  of  being  employed, 
since  the  intervals  of  the  received  scale  omit  many  possi- 
ble intermediate  tones. 

But  the  scale  used  in  verse  —  that  is,  the  list  of 
all  the  tones  employed  by  the  speaking-voice  —  rejects 
these  intervals  and  includes  every  tone  perceptible  by 
the  ear  within  the  limits  of  its  range.  That  is  to 
say :  if  we  should  set  about  forming  the  scale  of  the 
speaking-voice  as  we  did  that  of  the  piano,  we  would 
begin  with  (say)  the  lowest  tone  of  a  man's  voice — a 
tone  produced  by  about  65  vibrations  in  a  second  — 
for  the  first  tone  of  the  scale;  for  the  second  tone  we 
would  not  skip,  as  in  the  case  of  the  piano,  to  another 
tone  lying  at  a  distance  of  several  possible  intermediate 
tones  from  the  first,  but  we  must  take  the  next  pos- 
sible tone,  that  is,  the  tone  which  is  so  near  the  first 
in  pitch  that  if  it  were  any  nearer  our  ear  could  per- 

1  For  the  sake  of  students  who  are  here  studying  the  scale  for  the  first 
time,  all  complications  of  diatonic  and  chromatic  scales  are  omitted, 
being,  indeed,  details  not  the  least  necessary  to  the  demonstration. 


Scale  of  Verse.  57 

ceive  no  difference.  Referring  the  reader  to  the  dis- 
cussion of  The  Tunes  of  Verse  in  Part  II.,  for  the 
proofs  that  the  voice  does  use  such  a  scale,  as  well  as- 
for  the  limits  of  the  ear's  perceptive  capacity  in  distin- 
guishing between  the  pitch  of  tones  nearly  alike,  we 
can  now  formulate  this  second  difference  between  music 
and  verse  into  the  somewhat  more  definite  proposition 
that  — 

The  scale  of  music  omits  many  possible  tones  between 
its  limits,  selecting  only  certain  tones  according  to  a 
definitely  arranged  order  of  intervals  :  the  scale  of  verse 
embraces  all  the  tones  possible  within  the  limits  of  the 
human  speaking-voice.1 

The  foregoing  proposition  aims  only  to  state  the 
distinctions  between  music  and  verse :  it  will  not  be 
found  complete  for  other  purposes.  For  example,  it 
would  not  serve  to  discriminate  verse  and  prose.  Prose 
has  its  rhythms,  its  tunes,  and  its  tone-colors,  like  verse  ; 
and,  while  the  extreme  forms  of  prose  and  verse  are  suffi- 
ciently unlike  each  other,  there  are  such  near  grades  of 
intermediate  forms  that  they  may  be  said  to  run  into 
each  other,  and  any  line  claiming  to  be  distinctive  must 
necessarily  be  more  or  less  arbitrary.  The  art  of  sound 
must  always  be  regarded  the  genus,  and  music  and 
verse  its  two  species.  Prose,  scientifically  considered, 
is  a  wild  variety  of  verse. 

1  The  author  hopes  in  a  future  edition  to  present  experimental  verifi- 
cations of  this  doctrine  as  to  the  scale  of  verse.  The  process  of  arriving 
at  the  average  capacity  of  the  ear  for  discriminating  slight  differences  of 
pitch  involves  many  personal  equations,  as  may  easily  be  seen ;  and  a 
satisfactory  result  could  be  obtained  only  from  a  large  number  of  experi- 
ments. Meantime  perhaps  the  considerations  offered  in  support  of  the 
doctrine  in  Part  II.  will  be  accepted  as  giving  it  at  least  the  position  of  a 
working  hypothesis. 


58  Science  of  English   Verse. 

The  science  of  verse,  then,  observes  and  classifies 
all  the  phenomena  of  rhythm,  of  tune,  and  of  tone-color, 
so  far  as  they  can  be  exhibited  to  the  ear  directly  by 
spoken  words,  —  or  to  the  ear,  through  the  eye,  by  writ- 
ten or  printed  signs  of  spoken  words,  —  or  to  the  mind 
by  the  conception  of  spoken  words  ;  and, 

The  science  of  English  verse  observes  and  classifies 
these  phenomena  so  far  as  they  can  be  indicated  through 
the  medium  of  spoken  English  words. 

Here  the  general  subject  seems  sufficiently  divided. 
The  phenomena  having  been  primarily  classified  upon 
the  principle  of  referring  them  to  the  physical  pro- 
cesses which  cause  them,  the  more  special  investigations 
which  follow  naturally  arrange  themselves  into  three 
parts,  to  wit : 

Part  I.          ...     The  Rhythms  of  English  Verse  ; 
Part  II.     .         .         .         The  Tunes  of  English  Verse  ; 
Part  III.       .        .        .     The  Colors  of  English  Verse. 


PART    I. 

THE   RHYTHMS  OF  ENGLISH  VERSE. 
CHAPTER   II. 

OF  THE  DURATION  AND  GROUPING  OF  ENGLISH  VERSE- 
SOUNDS. 

EACH  "sound,"  for  the  purposes  of  verse,  is  repre- 
sented by  one  syllable.  Such  a  syllable  may  consist 
of  a  single  letter  forming  a  word,  as  the  vocative  O  ;  or 
a  single  letter  forming  one  syllable  of  a  word,  as  #-way ; 
or,  in  general,  of  any  number  of  letters  which  may  be 
caused  to  present  to  the  ear  the  impression  of  a  single 
discrete  mass  of  tone-color.  Thus,  within  the  meaning 
of  verse,  "  O  "  is  one  sound,  though  represented  by  only 
a  single  letter ;  while  "  through  "  is  also  but  one  verse- 
sound  to  the  ear,  though  represented  to  the  eye  by 
seven  letters,  or  signs  of  sound. 

The  reader  must  carefully  notice  the  shifting  senses 
in  which  the  word  "syllable"  is  often  used  ;  one  denoting 
the  sound,  and  one  denoting  the  combination  of  letters 
which  is  the  sign  of  that  sound.  To  avoid  the  confu- 
sion of  this  double  meaning,  it  is  better  to  use  always 
the  term  "sound"  —  distinguished,  when  necessary,  as 
"  verse-sound  "  —  to  denote  each  discrete  impression 
indicated  to  the  ear  by  any  letter,  or  combination  of 

59 


60  Science  of  English   Verse. 

letters,  ordinarily  called  a  syllable.     For  example,  in  the 

line :  — 

"  Among  trunks  grouped  in  myriads  round," 

there  are  nine  distinct  verse-sounds,  represented  by 
combinations  of  letters  differing  widely  in  number,  to 
wit  : 

First  sound A- 

Second  sound .  mong 

Third  sound trunks 

Fourth  sound grouped 

Fifth  sound in 

Sixth  sound myr- 

Seventh  sound i- 

Eighth  sound  .......  ads 

Ninth  sound         .......  round. 

Here  we  find  that  the  first  verse-sound  is  represented 
by  one  letter,  the  second  by  four  letters,  the  third  by 
six,  and  the  fourth  by  seven. 

The  reader  should  acquire  the  habit  of  consciously 
separating  words,  phrases,  and  sentences  into  these 
constituent  verse-sounds.  Every  English-speaking  per- 
son does  this  z/;zconsciously  ;  for, 

It  is  the  English  habit  to  utter  each  word,  whether 
prose  or  verse,  in  such  a  manner  that  the  sounds 
of  which  it  is  composed  bear  to  each  other  definite 
and  simple  relations  in  point  of  time.  By  "definite 
and  simple  relations  "  is  meant  the  relations  either  of 
equality  or  of  proportion  according  to  the  small  numbers 
i,  2,  3,  4,  5,  &c.  For  instance,  if  two  sounds  occupy 
exactly  equal  times,  they  are  said  to  bear  to  each  other 
the  relation  of  equality,  or  the  proportion  of  i  to  i  ;  if 
one  of  the  sounds  occupies  exactly  half  as  much  time 
as  the  other,  they  are  said  to  bear  to  each  other  the 


Simple  Relations  of  English  Sounds.       6 1 

definite  and  simple  proportion  of  i  to  2  ;  if  one  is  three 
times  as  long  in  duration  as  the  other,  they  bear  to 
each  other  the  definite  and  simple  proportion  of  i  to 
3  ;  and  so  on.  If  one  sound  were  three  and  a  third 
times  as  long  as  the  other,  or  two  and  a  seventh  times 
as  long,  or  one  and  a  sixth  times  as  long,  or  any  like 
numbers,  the  proportion  would  be  /^definite  (to  the  ear, 
at  least),  and  wwsimple,  or  complex.  Let  the  reader 
observe  the  remarkable  circumstance,  — which  has  prob- 
ably not  been  sufficiently  attended  to,  —  that  these  pro- 
portions between  successive  English  sounds  might  have 
been  quite  as  indefinite  and  complex  as  those  between 
the  numbers  just  suggested,  or  even  much  more  so. 
There  seems  to  be  no  reason  in  the  nature  of  things, 
apart  from  the  wonderful  rhythmic  sense  of  men,  — 
which  must  presently  be  set  forth,  —  why  the  proportion 
of  i  to  i-$4  (for  example)  might  not  have  answered  all 
economical  purposes  in  speech,  as  well  as  that  of  i  to  i, 
or  i  to  2,  or  i  to  3,  or  i  to  4. 

Of  course  it  is  understood  that  this  proposition  has 
no  reference  to  the  absolute  time  occupied  by  Eng- 
lish words :  it  concerns  only  their  relative  time.  The 
actual  average  rate  of  English  utterance  is  probably 
about  one  hundred  and  eighty  words  to  the  minute,  or 
three  words  to  the  second,  or  one  word  to  one-third  of 
a  second ;  and  if  each  word  were  a  monosyllable,  or 
one-sound  word,  then  we  could  say  that  the  absolute 
time  of  each  sound  was  one-third  of  a  second.  Of 
course,  this  rate  varies  very  greatly ;  but  its  variation 
does  not  in  the  least  affect  the  truth  of  the  proposition 
concerning  the  relative  time  occupied  by  English 
sounds.  Whether  the  first  sound  of  any  series  occupy 
the  third,  the  half,  the  sixth,  or  any  other  part  of  a 


62  Science  of  English   Verse. 

second,  what  is  asserted  is,  that  the  other  sounds  will 
bear  simple  and  definite  relations  to  it  in  point  of  time. 

This  principle  may  now  be  stated  in  terms  of  a 
preceding  proposition  thus :  every  series  of  English 
sounds,  whether  prose  or  verse,  suggests  to  the  ear 
exact  co-ordinations  with  reference  to  duration.  And 
inasmuch  as  "exact  co-ordinations  with  reference  to 
duration  "  is  only  a  scientific  term  for  rhythm  from  a 
certain  point  of  view,  we  may  say  sweepingly  that, 

All  English  words  are  primarily  rhythmical. 

The  term  "primary  rhythm"  will  be  of  great  service. 
The  following  considerations  will  illustrate  its  meaning 
more  fully. 

If  equal  or  simply-proportionate  intervals  of  time  be 
marked  off  to  any  of  our  senses  by  any  recurrent  series 
of  similar  events,  we  may  be  said  to  perceive  a  primary 
rhythm  through  that  sense.  Thus,  if  a  rose  be  waved 
before  the  eyes  once  every  second,  we  may  be  said  to 
have  a  perception  of  primary  rhythm  through  the  sense 
of  sight ;  if  the  rose  be  held  under  the  nostrils  once 
every  second,  we  would  have  primary  rhythm  marked 
off  for  the  sense  of  smell ;  if  it  should  be  pressed  upon 
the  forehead  once  every  second,  we  would  perceive 
primary  rhythm  by  the  sense  of  touch  ;  if  it  should  be 
crushed  on  the  tongue  every  second,  we  would  perceive 
primary  rhythm  by  the  sense  of  taste ;  and,  if  it  should 
be  whirred  swiftly  past  the  ear  every  second,  we  would 
perceive  primary  rhythm  by  the  sense  of  hearing. 

'But  this  primary  rhythm  may  be  considered  a  sort 
of  primordial  material,  which  the  rhythmic  sense  of 
man  always  tends  to  mould  into  a  more  definite,  more 
strongly-marked,  and  more  complex  form  that  may  well 
be  called  secondary  rhythm.  The  nature  of  secondary 


Secondary  Rhythm  in   Clock -Ticks.         63 

rhythm,  and  the  strength  of  the  tendency  which  all 
ordinary  people  have  to  mark  off  any  set  of  events 
which  have  established  a  primary  rhythm  into  subordi- 
nate sets  or  groups  whose  relations  to  each  other  con- 
stitute a  secondary  rhythm,  may  be  gathered  from  the 
following  familiar  illustration. 

A  clock  which  ticks  seconds  may  be  said  to  set  up  a 
primary  rhythm  for  the  ear  which  hears  each  recurrent 
tick.  These  ticks  are  exactly  alike :  they  fulfil  the 
definition  of  primary  rhythm,  which  describes  it  as  a 
conception  resulting  from  a  similar  event  recurring  at 
equal  (or  simply-proportionate)  periods  of  time.  But 
every  one  who  has  been  in  a  room  alone  with  a  ticking 
clock  must  have  observed  that  every  other  tick  seems 
to  be  different,  somehow,  from  its  fellow,  as  if  it  said, 
"Tick-te<:£,  tick-Air^,"  &c. ;  and  the  effect  of  this  differ- 
ence is  to  arrange  the  whole  series  into  groups,  of  two 
ticks  in  each  group.  Now,  this  grouping  is  secondary 
rhythm.  The  ear  not  only  goes  on  comparing  each  tick 
with  tick  as  a  primary  unit  of  rhythmic  measure ;  but  it 
proceeds  to  compare  each  group  of  two  ticks  with  its 
fellow-group  of  two  ticks,  thus  constituting  a  secon- 
dary unit  of  rhythmic  measure.  These  processes,  and 
several  extensions  of  them  which  must  presently  be 
detailed,  are  precisely  what  are  carried  on  in  verse. 
Before  transferring  them  to  that,  let  us  examine  for  a 
moment  the  means  by  which  the  secondary  rhythm  is 
established  in  the  series  of  clock-ticks. 

We  found  that  a  certain  "difference"  in  the  sound 
of  every  alternate  tick  from  the  sound  of  its  fellow-tick 
marks  off  the  whole  series  into  twos.  What  is  this 
difference  in  sound  ?  If  we  examine  it  closely,  we  per- 
ceive that  it  seems  to  be  not  only  a  difference  in  pitch, 


64  Science  of  English   Verse. 

—  as  if  the  clock,  instead  of  saying,  "  Tick-tick,  tick-tick, 
tick-tick,"  and  so  on,  should  say,  "  Tick-tack,  tick-tack, 
tick-tack,"  and  so  on,  —  but  also  a  difference  in  empha- 
sis, stress,  or  accent  (that  is,  in  intensity),  as  if  the 
clock  said,  "Tick-tack,  tick-tack,"  and  so  on. 

Here  we  see  how  a  series  of  clock-ticks  already  hav- 
ing a  primary  rhythm  —  that  is,  a  primary  unit-of -meas- 
ure of  time  as  between  each  separate  tick  —  is  also 
made  to  have  a  secondary  rhythm  —  that  is,  a  secondary 
unit-of-measure  of  time  as  between  each  group-of-two 
ticks ;  and  that  this  secondary  unit-of-measure  is  estab- 
lished by  means  of  a  difference  in  pitch  and  in  inten- 
sity between  every  alternate  tick  and  its  fellow,  or,  in 
other  words,  by  a  recurrent  variation  in  pitch  and  in 
intensity. 

This  illustration  advances  us  to  the  principle  that 

The  tendency  to  arrange  any  primary  units  of  rhythm 
into  groups,  or  secondary  units  of  rhythm,  is  so  strong 
in  ordinary  persons,  that  the  imagination  will  even 
effect  such  a  grouping  when  the  sounds  themselves 
do  not  present  means  for  it. 

For  the  grouping  of  the  clock-ticks  into  twos  seems 
really  due  to  our  imagination,  and  not  to  any  difference 
in  the  sounds  actually  made  by  the  machinery ;  as 
may  be  proved  by  concentrating  the  attention  upon 
now  one,  now  another,  of  the  ticks ;  when  it  will  be 
found  that  we  can  at  pleasure  change  the  order  of  the 
series,  converting  the  "tick"  into  a  "tack,"  or  the  re- 
verse. In  short,  we  here  see  evidence  that  whenever 
the  primordial  material  of  rhythm  —  that  is,  a  series  of 
sounds  having  among  themselves  definite  relations  of 
time  or  duration  —  is  presented  to  the  ear,  the  tendency 
to  rhythmize  these  further,  by  grouping  the  original 


Time,  the  Basis  of  Rhythm.  65 

units  into  that  larger  form  of  rhythm  called  secondary 
rhythm,  is  so  strong  that  the  imagination  will  fancy  the 
accentuation  requisite  for  the  purpose  of  such  seconda- 
ry grouping. 

It  will  be  of  use  to  mention  here,  by  way  of  an- 
ticipation, that  it  is  this  secondary  rhythm  which  is 
usually  meant  by  the  term  "rhythm"  in  ordinary  dis- 
course, and  that  the  variations  in  pitch  and  in  intensity 
by  which  we  saw  it  effected  among  the  clock-ticks  are 
what  is  usually  called  "  accent "  in  English  treatises. 
The  point  to  be  rigorously  observed  here  is  that  all 
secondary  rhythm  (in  ordinary  language,  all  "  rhythm  ") 
necessarily  presupposes  a  primary  rhythm  which  depends 
upon  considerations  of  time  or  duration  :  in  other  words, 
that  rhythm  of  any  sort  is  impossible,  except  through 
the  co-ordination  of  time.  Time  is  the  essential  basis 
of  rhythm.  "Accent"  can  effect  nothing,  except  in 
arranging  materials  already  rhythmical  through  some 
temporal  recurrence.  Possessing  a  scries  of  sounds  tem- 
porally equal  or  temporally  proportionate,  we  can  group 
them  into  various  orders  of  larger  and  larger  groups, 
as  we  shall  presently  see,  by  means  of  accent ;  but  the 
primordial  temporalness  is  always  necessary.1 

1  These  considerations,  which  have  been  purposely  put  into  a  some- 
what rambling  form  in  order  to  present  the  matter  from  several  points  of 
view,  can  now  l>c  summed  up  in  a  convenient  demonstration.  The  theorem 
is,  there  can  be  no  rhythm  in  sounds,  except  through  their  relative  time  or 
duration  ("  Quantity" ). 

For  only  four  kinds  of  sound-relation  are  possible :  namely,  those  of 
(i)  duration  or  time,  (2)  intensity,  (3)  pitch,  and  (4)  tone-color.  Now,  if 
duration  be  not  the  sound-relation  essential  to  rhythm,  either  intensity,  or 
pitch,  or  tone-color  must  be  that  relation. 

(A)  But  intensity  cannot  be  it. 

For,  if  so,  the  ear,  in  co-ordinating  sounds  with  reference  to-  their  loud- 
ness  or  softness  alone,  would  perceive  rhythm.  Now,  co-ordinations  must 
be  either  (a)  inexact,  or  (b)  exact. 


66  Science  of  English   Verse. 

That  any  confusion  or  doubt  upon  this  point  should 
ever  have  arisen  must  indeed  seem  strange,  particu- 
larly to  those  who  approach  the  consideration  of  verse 
after  a  practical  acquaintance  with  music.  Perhaps 
the  best  train  of  reflection  for  any  one  whom  the  cur- 
rent doubts  about  the  so-called  "quantity  "of  English 
words  may  have  caused  to  hesitate  in  accepting  the 
sweeping  propositions  just  given  is  to  try  what  possible 
method  of  rendering  sounds  rhythmical  would  remain 
to  the  musician,  if  the  sounds  were  not  simply  related  to 

(a)  But  inexact  coordinations  of  intensity  cannot  result  in  the  percep- 
tion of  rhythm  ;  for,  since  all  sounds  have  some  intensity,  no  sounds  could 
then  be  unrhythmical,  which  is  absurd. 

(b)  Nor  can  exact  co-ordinations  of  intensity  produce  perceptions  of 
rhythm ;  for  the  ear  cannot  make  exact  co-ordinations  of  intensity.     (See 
Proposition  5.) 

(B)  Again  :  pitch  cannot  be  the  relation  essential  to  rhythm. 

For,  if  pitch  alone  can  render  sounds  rhythmical,  it  must  do  so  either 
by  their  (c)  sameness  in  pitch,  or  by  their  (d)  difference  in  pitch. 

(c)  But  sounds  are  rhythmical  which  are  not  the  same  in  pitch,  as  the 
existence  of  music  shows. 

(d)  While,  on  the  other  hand,  sounds  are  rhythmical  which  are  the 
same  in  pitch,  as  is  shown  by  all  the  rhythmic  combinations  made  upon 
the  drum,  the  triangle,  the  cymbal,  the  gong,  the  bones,  and  other  similar 
instruments  which  do  not  vary  in  pitch,  or  by  the  numberless  rhythms 
which  can  be  marked  off  for  the  ear  upon  any  single  key  of  a  piano 

(C)  Lastly,  tone-color  alone  cannot  be  the  basis  of  rhythm. 

For,  if  it  were,  it  would  have  to  be  so  either  through  (e)  sameness  of 
tone-color,  or  (f)  difference  of  tone-color,  in  the  successive  sounds. 

(e)  But  sameness  of  tone-color  cannot  be  essential  to  rhythm ;  for,  if  so, 
every  line  of  verse  could  contain  but  one  vowel-sound  ;  while,  on  the  other 
hand, 

(/)  Difference  of  tone-color  cannot  be  essential  to  rhythm,  because 
numberless  rhythms  (as  in  Sect.  B}  can  be  marked  off  for  the  ear  upon  a 
drum,  —  all  of  whose  successive  sounds  are  the  same  in  tone-color,  —  or 
upon  a  triangle,  a  gong,  a  single  key  of  the  piano,  &c. 

If  rhythm  is  therefore  independent  upon  either  intensity,  pitch,  or  tone- 
color,  it  must  be  dependent  upon  the  only  other  possible  sound-relation  — 
time,  duration,  or  quantity. 


Secondary  Grouping.  67 

each  other  in  point  of  time.  He  might,  of  course,  divide 
any  given  sounds  off  into  groups  by  means  of  accent, 
or  emphasis,  or  by  means  of  recurrent  variations  in 
pitch  or  in  tone-color.  But  groups  of  what  ?  No  group 
would  present  any  relation  to  any  other  group  which 
could  enable  the  ear  to  co-ordinate  them  as  to  rhythm. 
Suppose,  for  example,  that  we  should  group  eight  suc- 
cessive sounds  into  four  groups  of  two  each,  by  making 
every  alternate  sound  louder  and  higher  than  its  fellow ; 
but  suppose  —  to  take  only  the  simpler  forms  of  un- 
simple  relations  in  time  —  the  first  sound  to  be  one  and 
a  fourth  times  the  second  in  duration,  one  and  a  fifth 
times  the  third,  one  and  a  sixth  times  the  fourth,  one 
and  a  seventh  times  the  fifth,  and  so  on  :  it  is  easy  to 
see,  that,  while  we  would  here  have  four  groups,  they 
would  not  be  groups  of  any  thing  in  particular,  and 
would  be  wholly  incomparable  and  incommensurable  by 
the  ear. 

In  music  this  is  plainly  enough  seen.  A  "bar"  in 
music  —  or  a  "  foot  "  or  "  measure  "  in  verse  —  is 
exactly  one  of  the  "groups"  described  in  the  clock- 
tick  illustration,  only  made,  not  by  the  imagination,  but 
but  by  an  actual  stress  clearly  calling  the  ear's  attention 
to  some  given  tone  of  each  group.  In  a  strain  of  music 
any  bar  is  exactly  equal  to  any  other  bar '  in  the  time 
it  occupies.  If  this  equality  in  time  were  taken  away, 
no  possibility  of  rhythm  would  remain  ;  and  it  must  be 
apparent  that  the  possibility  of  rhythm  is  the  same, 
whether  the  rhythm  be  music-rhythm  or  verse-rhythm  ; 
the  only  difference  between  the  two  being  that  in 

1  Of  course  an  accelerando  in  the  course  of  the  strain  affects  only  the 
absolute  time  :  the  relative  time  remains  always  equal  in  the  type  which 
tlie  miiul  constructs  of  the  rhythm  of  the  piece. 


68  Science  of  English   Verse. 

music  the  time  is  marked  off  for  the  ear  by  musical 
sounds,  while  in  verse  the  time  is  marked  off  for  the 
ear  by  verse-sounds.  In  both  cases,  it  is  always  and 
necessarily  time  which  is  marked  off. 

It  seemed  necessary  to  interrupt  the  discussion  of 
English  sounds  with  so  much  of  a  digression  upon 
the  nature  of  rhythm  in  general,  and  of  primary  and 
secondary  rhythm  in  particular,  in  order  to  develop 
intelligibly  the  remarkable  rhythmic  properties  which 
have  arisen  in  English  words  and  phrases  through  the 
genius  of  our  speech.  The  essential  function  of  time, 
or  duration,  in  all  rhythm,  has  been  dwelt  upon,  and 
repeated,  on  account  of  the  great  variety  of  hesitating 
and  confused  opinions  which  have  been  held,  and  which 
still  prevail,  as  to  what  is  called  "quantity"  in  English 
verse.  "  Quantity  "  is  a  term  originally  used  to  denote 
the  relative  duration  of  Greek  and  Latin  verse-sounds. 
In  those  two  languages  the  duration  of  successive  verse- 
sounds  was,  or  is  alleged  to  have  been,  not  only  confined 
to  a  single  proportion,  namely,  that  of  I  to  2,  all  the 
sounds  being  divided  into  "longs"  and  "shorts,"  of 
which  any  "  long  "  was  equal  in  time  to  two  "  shorts  ; " 
but  this  proportion  was  fixed  for  each  sound,  so  that  a 
long  was  always  a  long,  a  short  always  a  short,  and  so 
on. 

But  as  it  was  evident  that  neither  of  these  limitations 
held  in  English  verse, — that  is  to  say,  as  it  was  evi- 
dent that  English  verse-sounds  bore  other  proportions 
to  each  other  than  that  of  I  to  2,  and  were  not  fixed  in 
quantity,  the  same  verse-sound  sometimes  doing  duty  as 
a  "long,"  sometimes  as  a  "short,"  and  sometimes  as 
neither,  —  many  drew  from  these  facts  the  inference 
that  there  was  no  such  thing  as  quantity  at  all  in  our 


Quantity.  69 

verse.  A  slight  examination  will  show,  however,  that 
(leaving  out  of  view  the  primary  fact  that  no  rhythm  is 
possible  without  quantity,  —  that  is,  time, — as  just 
shown)  this  inference  is  not  at  all  warranted  by  the 
circumstances  cited.  The  logical  conclusion  from  them 
would  be,  not  that  there  is  no  quantity  among  English 
verse-sounds,  but  that  their  quantity  is  differently  deter- 
mined from  that  of  the  classic  verse-sounds. 

In  point  of  fact,  quantity  is  inseparable  from  all 
English  words ;  though  it  is  shifting,  exactly  as  in 
music  (that  is,  the  same  sound  may  be  used  either  for  a 
"short"  or  a  "long,"  according  to  its  varying  relations 
with  its  neighboring  sounds)  ;  and  it  is  not  limited  to 
the  single  proportion,  i  to  2,  but  exists  clearly  in  the 
further  proportions  of  I  to  3,  i  to  4,  I  to  5,  and  so  on. 
That  this  must  be  so  will  perhaps  appear  more  clearly 
from  the  following  train  of  thought. 

In  the  first  place,  it  is  evident  that  some  time  must  be 
consumed  in  uttering  each  sound  of  every  English  word, 
whether  of  prose  or  verse.  This  being  so,  the  inquiry 
narrows  itself  to  finding  out  whether,  in  uttering  more 
than  one  sound,  the  time  actually  consumed  by  the  first 
sound  bears  any  such  simple  relation  to  the  time  con- 
sumed in  uttering  the  second  and  succeeding  sounds,  as 
that  the  ear  can  trace  a  distinct  unit-of -measure  through 
them  all,  by  which  all  can  be  measured  in  terms  of 
small  numbers  ;  the  ear  saying,  This  sound  is  twice  that 
in  time,  this  tJiree  times  that,  this  four  times  that,  and 
so  on. 

This  inquiry  is  best  answered  by  a  practical  experi- 
ment. 

Suppose  we  write  the  line, 

Rhythmical  roundelays,  wavering  downward. 


70 


Science  of  English   Verse. 


In  order  to  represent  its  time-relations,  let  us  resort  to 
the  simple  and  unequivocal  system  for  noting  rhythm 
used  in  music.  Taking  a  very  slow  rate  of  utter- 
ing words  for  clearness,  the  actual  number  of  rhythmic 
sounds  (not  words,  but  separate  verse-sounds  composing 
them)  uttered  in  a  minute  may  be  here  considered  to 
be  1  80.  Dividing  this  by  60,  we  have  three  verse- 
sounds  to  the  second,  or  one  verse-sound  to  each  third 
of  a  second. 

Now,  if  the  musical  sign  f  —  called  an  "eighth-note" 

—  be   taken    to   represent   a   sound  whose  duration  is 
one-third  of  a  second,  or  that   of   one   ordinary  verse- 
sound,  then  the  sign  |  —  called  a  "quarter-note,"  =  2  P's 

—  will  represent  a  sound  whose  duration  is  two-thirds  of 
a  second  ;  and  two  such  sounds  in  succession  —  that  is, 
an  f  and  a  f  —  would  exactly  occupy  one  second.    When 
to  these  elements  we  add  the  musical  sign  A»  indicating 
an  increase  of  intensity,  or  an  accent,  on  any  note  over 
which  it  may  be  placed,  we  have  an  extremely  simple 
system  of  notation,  with  which  we  may  at  least  begin  to 
note  the  time-relations  of  rhythm  with  accuracy.     Post- 
poning a  further  explanation  of  the  musical  system  for 
noting  rhythm  until  further  need  requires  it,  let  us  now 
recur  to  the  line  above  written.     Every  person  with  the 
ordinary  feeling   for  rhythm  upon  seeing  such   a   line 
would  recognize  it  without  hesitation  as  rhythmic   ac- 
cording to  the  following  scheme  (i)  :r  — 


(0 

I 

2 

3 

4 

A 

A 

A 

A 

t 

[ 

: 

' 

t 

: 

t 

c 

c 

f      t 

Rhythm 

-  ic  - 

al 

round 

•  e 

-  lays 

wav  - 

er  - 

ing 

down-ward. 

I 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

IO           II 

1  This  is,  more  correctly,  a  scheme  of  the  type  of  the  rhythm.  Upon 
the  preservation  of  such  types  to  the  ear  through  many  lines,  varying  it 
very  widely,  comment  is  presently  made. 


Recognition  of  Rhythmic  Intent.  7 1 

in  which  each  f —  representing  a  sound  of  the  duration 
of  one-third  of  a  second — is  allotted  as  a  sign  to  each 
verse-sound  which  in  practice  actually  occupies  about 
that  time. 

Now,  how  could  the  words  of  the  given  line  be  recog- 
nized by  every  reader  as  constituting  the  rhythm  de- 
scribed? Why  does  the  reader  recognize  the  first 
verse-sound,  "  rhythm,"  as  exactly  equal  in  time  to  the 
second  verse-sound,  "ic  ;  "  the  second  equal  to  the  third, 
"  al ; "  that  to  the  fourth ;  and  so  on,  until  the  tenth 
soundt  "  down,"  is  reached,  which  is  recognized  as 
exactly  twice  as  long  in  time  as  any  one  of  the  others  ? 
Why,  indeed,  should  the  reader  wholly  unacquainted 
with  the  rhythmical  intentions  of  the  writer  of  the  line 
imagine  any  simple  relations  at  all  between  the  times  of 
each  of  these  verse-sounds?  Why  might  not  complex 
or  utterly  vague  relations  be  as  easily  imagined,  so  that 
the  first  sound,  "rhythm,"  might  be  (say)  iff  of  the 
second,  "ic;"  the  third,  "al,"  2\\\  of  the  fourth, 
"round;"  the  fifth,  "e,"  \H\\  of  the  sixth,  "lays;" 
and  so  on  ? 

But,  further,  why  does  the  reader  not  only  perceive 
the  primary  rhythm  of  this  line  —  that  is,  the  simple 
relations  in  time  of  its  verse-sounds,  —  but  also  its  sec- 
ondary rhythm,  —  that  is,  its  grouping  into  four  groups, 
of  which  the  first  three  groups  have  each  three  sounds 
equal  in  time,  while  the  fourth  group  has  but  two 
sounds,  which  two-group  is,  nevertheless,  collectively 
equal  in  time  to  any  one  of  the  other  three-groups  ? 

Postponing  the  answers  to  these  questions  for  a  mo- 
ment, let  us  vary  the  line  so  as  to  make  the  answers 
cover  more  ground.  Suppose,  instead  of  the  line, 

Rhythmical  roundelays  wavering  downward, 


(2) 

A 

A 

A 

r 

c 

' 

t 

I 

(P 

P 

Rhythm  - 

ic 

round  - 

e 

-  lays 

wav' 

-   ring 

I 

2 

3 

72  Science  of  English   Verse. 

one  should  write, 

Rhythmic  roundelays  wav'ring  downward. 

For  the  sake  of  comparison  let  us  place  these  lines  in 
juxtaposition. 

Rhythmical         roundelays         wavering        downward. 
Rhythmic  roundelays         wav'ring         downward. 

Every  ordinary  reader  would  recognize  in  such  a  line 
the  following  rhythmic  scheme  (2)  :  — 


r   c 

down  -  ward 


But  here  the  first  verse-sound  "  rhythm  "  is  recognized 
by  the  reader  as  a  f ,  while  in  the  foregoing  scheme 
(i)  it  was  as  clearly  recognized  as  f ;  and  it  does  in  fact 
discharge  the  functions  thus  indicated  in  a  manner 
perfectly  distinct  to  every  ordinary  English  ear.  Simi- 
larly, in  the  third  bar  (each  of  the  "groups"  of  verse- 
sounds  marked  i,  2,  3,  4,  corresponds  precisely  with 
what  is  called  the  "  bar  "  in  music  ;  and,  as  "  bar  "  has 
an  exact  technical  signification,  it  will  hereafter  be 
used  instead  of  "group")  the  verse-sound  "wav,"  which 
in  scheme  (i)  appeared  as  an  T,  appears  now  as  af .  Re- 
curring to  the  nomenclature  of  classic  quantity  for  a 
moment,  in  order  to  compare  these  appearances  from 
that  stand-point,  and  regarding  the  eighth-note  f  as  a 
"short,"  the  quarter-note  f  as  a  "long,"  we  may  now 
extend  our  questions,  and  ask,  How  is  it  that  the  two 
syllables,  "rhythm"  and  "wav,"  have  managed  to 
convey  to  the  reader  that  they  have  shifted  their  quan- 
tity, and  that,  whereas  each  appeared  as  a  "  short "  in 


Printed  Words,  Signs  of  Rhythm.         73 

the  first  line,  each  now  appears  as  a  "long"  in  the 
second  line  ?  By  what  signs  have  the  printed  words 
indicated  these  changes  to  the  reader  ? 

Before  pursuing  these  changes  beyond  the  simple 
forms  just  given,  it  is  now  time  to  collect  the  phe- 
nomena which  appear  from  the  foregoing  analysis,  and 
to  answer  the  questions  concerning  them.  We  have 
found,  first,  that  an  ordinary  English  reader,  in  coming 
upon  the  line, 

Rhythmical  roundelays  wavering  downward, 

would  immediately  recognize  in  it  the  rhythmic  move- 
ment noted  in  the  musical  scheme  No.  (i).  By  what 
signs  is  this  recognition  made  ? 

To  this  question  there  can  be  but  one  answer  :  The 
English  habit  of  uttering  words,  prose  or  verse,  is  to 
give  each  sound  of  each  word  a  duration  which  is 
either  equal  or  simply  proportionate  to  the  duration  of 
each  other  sound  ;  and,  since  these  simple  proportions 
enable  the  ear  to  make  those  exact  co-ordinations  of 
duration  which  result  in  the  perception  of  primary 
rhythm,  we  may  say  that  all  English  word-sounds  are 
primarily  rhythmical,  and  therefore  that  the  signs  of 
those  sounds  —  that  is,  written  or  printed  words  —  are  in 
reality  also  signs  of  primary  rhythm  ;  so  that  we  may 
say  further,  Written  or  printed  English  words  constitute 
a  sort  of  system  of  notation  for  primary  rhythm. 

But  this  is  not  all.  We  found,  secondly,  that  an  ordi- 
nary English  reader,  in  coming  upon  the  line, 

Rhythmical  roundelays  wavering  downward, 

would  recognize  not  only  the  simple  relations  in  time 
among  the  verse-sounds  which  suggest  primary  rhythm, 
but  would  also  recognize  a  certain  grouping  of  these 


74  Science  of  English   Verse. 

sounds  which  was  intended  by  the  writer  and  which 
constitutes  their  secondary  rhythm,  to  wit,  the  group- 
ing of  the  eleven  syllables  into  four  bars,  each  bar  equal 
in  its  time  to  each  other  bar,  the  three  first  bars  contain- 
ing three  T  's  each,  and  the  fourth  bar  a  j*  and  an  f,  which 
together  equal  three  f  's  :  by  what  signs  does  the  reader 
recognize  this  grouping  into  bars  ? 

The  answer  to  this  question  is,  The  English  habit  of 
uttering  words  is  not  only  to  utter  them  in  primary 
rhythm  (see  last  proposition),  but  to  make  a  difference  of 
intensity  (of  loudness  or  softness,  the  essential  principle 
of  all  rhythmic  "  accent "),  which  renders  one  sound  in 
each  word  prominent  above  every  other  sound  in  that 
word.  The  particular  sound  to  be  thus  distinguished  is 
fixed  for  each  word  in  our  language  by  agreement";  so 
that,  in  seeing  a  series  of  written  or  printed  words,  the 
reader  understands  which  syllable  of  each  word  is  ren- 
dered prominent  by  the  aforesaid  difference  of  intensity. 
If  the  series  of  words  reveals  the  difference  of  intensity 
recurring  at  regular  intervals  of  time,  as  in  this  series, 

Rhythmical  roundelays  wavering  downward, 

where  the  differences  occur  four  times  at  intervals  of 
three  f*  sounds  each  time,  then  this  recurrence  di- 
vides the  series  into  four  bars,  and  each  separate  bar 
becomes  a  unit-of-measure  for  the  secondary  rJiytJim, 
as  each  separate  sound  is  a  unit-of-measure  for  the 
primary  rJiythm  ;  so  that,  practically,  written  or  printed 
English  words  constitute  a  system  of  notation  for 
secondary  rhythm.  In  point  of  fact,  the  system  of 
verse  is  here  identical  in  method  with  that  of  music. 
It  is  understood  in  music  that  the  first  note  in  each 
bar  is  to  be  sounded  with  somewhat  more  intensity 


The  Bar,  a  Unit  of  Measure. 


75 


than  any  other  note  in  that  bar  ;  T  and  every  series  of 
musical  tones  is  thus  divided  into  groups  or  bars  for  the 
ear,  so  that  the  ear  knows  the  beginning  of  each  bar  by 
the  slight  increase  of  intensity  (or  stress,  or  "  accent  ") 
which  occurs  on  the  first  tone  of  it.  The  bar,  therefore, 
in  music  as  in  verse,  is  really  a  unit-of-measure  of  sec- 
ondary rhythm  :  in  one,  as  in  the  other,  the  ear  first 
compares  the  time  of  individual  sound  with  sound  -in 
order  to  perceive  the  primary  rhythm,  and  then  com- 
pares the  time  of  bar  with  bar  in  order  to  perceive  the 
secondary  rhythm. 

In  accordance  with  the  musical  understanding  just 
mentioned,  the  sign  A,  which  is  used  in  music  to  indi- 
cate a  special  stress  upon  the  note  over  which  it  is 
placed,  will  not  hereafter  be  used  except  in  cases  where 
a  stress  is  desired  upon  some  note  other  than  the  first 
in  each  bar.  Thus,  instead  of  writing,  as  in  scheme  (i), 


tit 


t  t  I  t  t 

it  is  sufficient  if  we  write 

tit  tit  til  r  : 

without  the  A  ;  every  musician  understanding  that  the 
first  note  in  a  bar  is  to  be  given  with  a  slight  increase 
of  intensity,  unless  some  other  note  in  that  bar  is 
marked  for  the  increase.  If  it  were  desired,  for  in- 
stance, to  indicate  groups  of  threes,  which  the  ear  could 
distinguish  by  listening  for  the  second  sound  in  each 
group,  we  would  write 

III    III    III    III 

1  Except  where  specially  marked  otherwise,  as   will   be   hereinafter 
explained. 


76  Science  of  English   Verse. 

or,  as  will  often  happen  in  noting  the  iambus  through 
the  following  discussion  of  special  rhythms, 


A 


A 


t   r     t   r     t  r     c   r 

The  recurrence  of  the  terms  "  ordinary  persons," 
"  the  ordinary  English  reader,"  and  the  like,  above, 
makes  it  proper  to  mention  at  this  point,  once  for  all, 
that  there  are  persons  not  ordinary  to  whom  these 
phenomena  would  not  be  apparent.  It  is,  in  fact,  a 
remarkable  circumstance  that  while  the  perception  of 
rhythm  is  perhaps  the  most  widely  distributed  of  all  our 
aesthetic  powers,  showing  itself  even  among  savage 
tribes  in  their  co-ordination  of  quite  complex  rhythmical 
phenomena  (see  the  general  considerations  of  rhythm, 
in  Chap.  VI.  following),  yet  among  the  most  cultivated 
nations  people  are  not  infrequently  found  who  appear 
to  be  without  the  sense  of  rhythm.  Perhaps  every  offi- 
cer of  experience  in  drilling  military  companies  will 
have  come  upon  men  who  were  unable  to  keep  step, 
and  who  remained  so,  in  spite  of  all  drill.  These  and 
other  similar  instances  show  the  existence  of  persons 
who  labor  under  an  inability  to  apprehend  rhythm  in 
any  form.  This  inability  appears  to  be  as  complete  as 
that  of  a  person  born  blind  to  apprehend  color.  Such 
persons,  however,  are  sufficiently  rare  to  be  considered 
abnormal,  and  are  so  few  in  comparison  with  that  enor- 
mous proportion  of  the  human  race  which  apprehends 
and  delights  in  rhythm  that  for  the  purposes  of  the 
present  discussion  they  may  be  left  out  of  considera- 
tion, so  far,  at  least,  as  to  omit  the  limiting  terms 
"ordinary  persons,"  "the  average  ear,"  and  so  forth, 
in  future. 


Secondary  Grouping.  77 

But  we  have  not  yet  answered  all  the  questions  raised 
by  the  two  lines  of  verse  cited.  We  found  that  the  line 

t  t  : 

Rhythm-ic  -  al  roundelays  wavering  downward 

would  suggest  to  a  reader  that  the  quantity  of  the  first 
verse-sound,  "  rhythm,"  was  that  of  an  eighth-note  ; 

while  the  line 

f     f 
I      U 

Rhythm-ic  roundelays  wav'ring  downward 

would  suggest  to  the  reader  that  the  very  same  sound, 
"rhythm,"  had  the  quantity  of  a  quarter-note,  that  is, 
was  intended  to  be  held  twice  as  long  in  pronunciation 
as  before.  How  was  this  suggestion  conveyed  to  the 
reader  ? 

By  the  secondary  rhythm,  or  grouping  into  bars. 
The  swing,  or  rhythmic  movement,  of  English  words  in 
two  syllables,  reveals  to  the  ear  always  the  primary 

A 

rhythm  of  f  f  (where  the  accent  falls  on  the  first  syl- 

A 

lable),  or  »  ?  (where  the  accent  falls  on  the  second  syl- 

lable) ;  and  the  ear  will  always  interpret  it  as  such, 
unless  other  suggestions  are  made  by  the  general  group- 
ing. If,  for  example,  the  grouping  was  obviously  into 
fours,  —  that  is,  if  each  bar  evidently  was  intended  to 
contain  four  equal  units  of  time,  as  in  such  a  line  as 


Rhythm-ic 


cccc   t  t  t  t   r  -  r 


round- e  -  lays    a- 


float   up  -  on    the 


moun-tams, 


where  the  accents  upon  "  round  "  and  "  float "  occur  at 
the  distance  of  four  sounds  apart,  and  thus  group  the 
whole  into  bars  of  four  eighth-notes  each,  —  then  the 


78  Science  of  English   Verse. 

two  sounds  "  rhythm  "  and  "  ic  "  would  be  interpreted 
and  uttered  by  the  reader  as  I*  and  f ;  for  the  obvious 
necessities  of  the  secondary  rhythm  require  four  eighth- 
notes  f  f,  or  their  equivalent,  in  each  bar ;  and 
the  equivalent  in  the  case  of  the  two  sounds  "  rhythm  " 
and  "  ic "  would  be  filled  out  by  making  each  sound  a 
quarter-note  in  length. 

Thus  we  see  that  the  quantity  or  duration  of  English 
sounds  is  variable ;  further,  that,  since  primary  rhythm 
depends  on  the  relative  quantity  or  duration  of  sound 
compared  with  sound,  the  primary  rhythm  of  English 
sounds,  while  always  existent,  may  vary  within  the  limits 
of  the  simple  proportions,  I  to  2,  I  to  3,  I  to  4,  and  so 
on ;  and,  finally,  that  the  primary  rhythm  of  a  doubtful 
word  may  be  indicated  by  the  secondary  rhythm  or 
grouping  into  bars. 

But  the  ordinary  habit  of  English  utterance  in  cur- 
rent speech,  which  thus  associates  primary  rhythm  with 
the  separate  sounds  of  words,  and  secondary  rhythm 
with  the  words  composed  of  these  sounds,  goes  still 
farther :  it  associates  what  we  may  consistently  call  a 
tertiary  rhythm  with  phrases  composed  of  separate 
words.  If  the  conduct  of  a  reader's  voice  in  deliver- 
ing English  prose  be  closely  observed,  it  will  be  found 
that  the  words  are  not  uttered  with  uniform  breaks  of 
silence  between  them,  but  that  they  are  uttered  in 
groups  of  two,  three,  four,  or  more  words  together,  — 
the  attention  of  the  ear  being  called  to  each  group  by 
making  the  silence  which  succeeds  it  longer  than  any 
silence  between  any  two  consecutive  words  of  that 
group :  in  other  words,  our  prose  is  marked  off  into 
groups  for  the  ear  by  silences  of  a  certain  duration. 
Since  the  musical  term  "rest"  means  a  "silence  of  a 


The  Phrase,  or  Tertiary  Rhythm.  79 

certain  duration,"  let  us  —  upon  the  general  principle 
which  will  be  observed  in  the  present  system  of  adopt- 
ing all  possible  terms  which  have  already  acquired 
precise  technical  significance  —  call  these  measured 
silences  "rests."  We  shall  find  them  used  as  often, 
and  with  functions  quite  as  clearly  defined,  in  verse  as 
in  music. 

The  phrase  in  our  printed  current  prose  is  often 
marked  off  for  the  eye  by  the  comma,  or  other  mark  of 
punctuation.  But  this  was  not  always  so,  even  in  the 
older  prose  of  our  language ;  and  the  modern  system 
of  punctuation,  which  allows  very  few  commas  as  com- 
pared with  the  older  system,  leaves  the  phrasing  of  a 
sentence  almost  entirely  to  the  feeling  of  the  reader. 

The  offices  of  the  phrase  in  prose  are  vital  to  all  clear 
and  musical  delivery ;  but,  without  here  entering  into 
them  further  than  to  recognize  their  existence,  let  us 
proceed  to  consider  the  function  of  the  phrase  in  verse. 

This  will  appear  in  an  interesting  connection  by  com- 
paring the  phrase  in  verse  with  the  phrase  in  music. 

The  phrase  in  music  is  a  rhythmic  grouping  of  a 
larger  order  than  the  bar,  embracing  generally  more 
than  one  bar.  The  following  four  phrases  constitute 
the  first  strain  of  the  wonderful  slow  movement  in 
Gade's  C  Minor  Symphony.  Each  phrase,  it  will  be 
observed,  consists  of  two  bars :  and  just  as  the  bar 
becomes  a  sort  of  larger  unit-of-measure,  enabling  the 
ear  to  make  measurements  of  rhythm  on  a  larger  scale 
by  comparing  bar  with  bar  (group  of  sounds  with  group 
of  sounds),  instead  of  individual  sound  with  individual 
sound,  so  the  phrase,  as  here  exhibited,  enables  the 
ear  to  make  rhythmic  comparisons  of  a  still  larger  order 
than  those  of  the  bar  by  co-ordinating  phrase  with 


8o 


Science  of  English   Verse. 


phrase,  that  is,  group-of-bars  with  group-of-bars.  For 
the  purpose  of  illustrating  this  relation -of  bar  to  phrase, 
the  phrases  are  here  written  under  each  other.  The 
reader,  if  unable  to  play  these  phrases,  should  cause 
them  to  be  played,  on  the  piano,  flute,  violin,  or  any 
accessible  instrument ;  noticing  particularly  how  the 
tune  of  the  second  phrase  forms  a  sort  of  replication,  or 
answer,  to  the  tune  of  the  first,  and  the  tune  of  the 
fourth  phrase  to  that  of  the  third,  thus  extending  the 
rhythmic  parallelism  of  the  phrases  in  duration  to  a  fur- 
ther parallelism  in  pitch.  It  may  augment  the  interest 
of  this  illustration  to  add  that  the  perfection  with  which 
Gade  (a  Danish  composer  of  our  own  time)  has  done  all 
this  in  the  movement  cited  —  the  art  with  which  the 
wonderful  simplicity  of  the  melodic  movement,  though 
arraying  phrase  against  phrase  most  unmistakably  to 
the  ear,  never  degenerates  into  the  woodenness  and 
uniformity  which  is  so  apt  to  result  from  a  too  distinct 
phrasing  in  music  —  must  always  distinguish  this  work, 
which,  on  many  other  accounts,  every  music-lover  is 
obliged  to  hold  as  a  heavenly  outcome  of  genius. 


First  phrase, 
Second  phrase, 

Third  phrase, 
Fourth  phrase. 


The  Phrase,  in   Verse.  81 

Now,  these  four  opening  phrases  are  given  by  the 
hautboy  in  the  movement  cited,  and,  just  as  in  reading 
prose  the  good  reader  gets  a  breath  at  each  phrase 
except  at  very  short  ones,  so  the  player  on  a  wind- 
instrument  breathes  at  the  end  of  each  phrase,  cutting 
off  a  small  part  of  the  tone  for  this  purpose  if  no  rest 
is  marked  in  the  music.  In  the  above  notation  the 
musical  sign  "  X  "  at  the  end  of  the  second  and  fourth 
phrases  means  a  rest  occupying  the  same  time  as  a 
quarter-note,  and  is  called  a  quarter-rest. 

But  compare  these  phrases  of  Cade's  music  with  the 
following  phrases  of  Shakspere's  verse.  In  order  to 
array  these  distinctly  against  each  other  to  the  eye,  as 
they  are  in  practice  arrayed  against  each  other  to  the 
ear  by  the  device  of  the  rest  presently  explained,  I  set 
them  under  each  other  like  the  Gade  phrases.  They 
are  from  the  speech  of  Horatio,  in  Act  I.  sc.  i,  of  Ham- 
let. Of  course  the  line-division  is  ignored  here  for  the 
sake  of  the  phrase-division. 

PHRASE. 

Horatio.  —  So  have  I  heard, one 

and  do  in  part  believe  it two 

But  look,       .........  three 

the  morn, four 

in  russet  mantle  clad,        ...      -r~~  T~  ,   •        .  five 

Walks  o'er  the  dew  of  yon  high  eastern  hill.   .        .  six 

Break  we  our  watch  up ;  .        .        .        .        .  seven 

and,  by  my  advice,         *  •      .        .        .        .        .        .  eight 

Let  us  impart  what  we  have  seen  to-night  Unto  young 

Hamlet ; »  nine 

for,  upon  my  life,  .        .        .        .        .        .        *        .  ten 

This  spirit,    .        .        .        •        .        •        •        »        •  eleven 

dumb  to  us, twelve 

will  speak  to  him.     .        .        .        .        .        .        .        .  thirteen. 

It  is  immediately  noticed  here,  that  instead  of  the  regu- 


82  Science  of  English   Verse. 

lar  rhythmic  antagonism  of  two-barred  phrase  against 
two-barred  phrase,  which  we  found  in  Cade's  music,  we 
have  an  irregular  rhythmic  antagonism,  the  first  phrase 
consisting  of  two  bars,  the  second  of  three  bars,  the 
third  of  one  bar,  the  sixth  of  five  bars,  the  ninth  of 
seven  bars,  and  so  on. 

Here  we  have  types  of  the  different  use  of  phrasing 
made  in  verse  from  that  made  in  music.  While  the 
phrases  in  music  are  not  always  so  symmetrically  op- 
posed to  each  other  as  in  the  illustration  from  Gade,  nor 
those  in  verse  always  so  unsymmetrically  opposed  as  in 
.  that  from  Shakspere,  it  is  still  a  rule  that,  in  general, 

The  phrase  in  verse  is  used  to  set  up  a  sort  of  in- 
termediate varying  rhythm  which  agreeably  breaks  the 
uniformity  of  such  unvarying  rhythms  as  that  of  the 
bar  and  of  certain  yet  larger  groups  hereafter  to  be 
explained.  Any  bar,  it  will  be  observed,  is  always 
exactly  equal  to  any  other  bar ;  and  the  ear's  attention 
is  rigorously  called  to  this  equality  by  the  recurrence  of 
the  accent  always  at  the  same  part  of  the  bar.  This 
unvarying  symmetry  would  be  likely  to  grow  monoto- 
nous, especially  when  re-enforced  by  the  other  symme- 
tries in  verse  presently  detailed,  if  it  were  not  relieved 
by  these  phrase-groups,  which  are  opposed  to  each 
other,  not  in  the  exact  proportion  of  equality  (or  I  to  i), 
as  are  the  bars,  but  in  proportions  varying  from  I  to  2, 
i  to  3,  i  to  5,  i  to  7,  &c.,  as  we  saw  in  the  Shakspere 
illustration. 

The  agency  by  which  the  phrase-grouping  is  marked 
off  for  the  ear  is  the  rest,  which  advises  the  ear  as  the 
punctuation-mark  does  the  eye.  We  shall  find,  in  the 
discussion  of  the  Tunes  of  Verse,  Part  II.,  that  in  read- 
ing verse  the  phrase-division  is  also  marked  off  for  the 


Tertiary  Grouping  by  Alliteration.        83 

ear  by  some  quite  characteristic  variations  in  pitch  of 
the  voice. 

Another  kind  of  grouping,  though  wholly  different 
from  the  phrase,  must  be  classed  with  the  phrase  as  of 
a  third  order  of  rhythmic  groups  because  it  is  typically 
larger  than  the  bar-group  or  second  order,  and  smaller 
than  the  line-group  or  fourth  order  which  is  presently 
to  be  explained. 

This  second  species  of  tertiary  rhythm  is  indicated 
to  the  ear  by  a  recurrence  of  the  same  tone-color  at  the 
accented  tone  of  two,  three,  or- more  bars,  and  is  indi- 
cated to  the  eye,  in  print  or  writing,  by  what  is  called 
"alliteration." 

For  example,  in  the  following  first  two  lines  of  a 
very  quaint  and  vigorous  poem  of  Queen  Elizabeth's 
which  has  been  preserved  to  us  by  Puttenham,  let  the 
reader  observe  how  the  first  three  bars  of  the  first  line 
are  grouped  together  for  the  ear  by  the  recurrence  of 
the  tone-color/  on  the  accented  tone  of  each  bar ;  and 
how,  in  the  second  line,  two  groups  of  two  bars  each 
are  marked  off  for  the  ear,  one  by  the  recurrence  of  w, 
and  the  other  by  the  recurrence  of  s. 

"The year  of  /iiture/bes  exiles  my  present  joy, 
And  wit  me  warns  to  jhun  such  .mares  as  threaten  mine  annoy."  * 

It  is  immediately  seen  that  the/,/,/,  in  "The/ear  of 
/uture /oes,"  the  w,  w,  in  "And  w\\.  me  warns,"  and 
the  s,  s,  in  "  to  jhun  such  jnares,"  call  the  ear's  atten- 
tion respectively  to  a  group  of  three  bars,  a  group  of 
two  bars,  and  another  group  of  two  bars,  and  that  this 
grouping  is,  like  that  of  the  phrase,  less  symmetrical 

1  The  use  of  "  annoy  "  as  a  noun,  in  the  sense  of  modern  "  annoyance," 
was  common  in  the  sixteenth  century,  though  it  has  now  passed  away. 


84  Science  of  English   Verse. 

than  that  of  bar  to  bar.  In  point  of  fact,  both  these 
species  of  tertiary  rhythm,  the  phrase  and  the  allitera- 
tive group,  are  rhythmically  used  to  relieve  the  stiffness 
arising  from  the  monotony  of  the  more  symmetrical 
groups  like  the  bar  and  the  line. 

The  agency  used  to  mark  off  the  alliterative  group  is 
always  the  recurrence  of  a  given  tone-color  on  some 
special  tone  of  the  bar,  usually  the  accented  tone. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  the  very  different  use  of 
alliterative  grouping  made  by  modern  English  poets  from 
that  made  of  it  by  the  earlier  poets.  In  Anglo-Saxon 
poetry  it  is  used,  not  at  all  as  an  irregular  relief  from 
rhythms  otherwise  established,  but  as  a  powerful  re-en- 
forcement of  the  main  or  secondary  rhythm,  and,  in 
this  capacity,  as  a  striking  determinant  of  the  otherwise 
doubtful  primary  rhythms  of  the  sounds.  A  concrete 
review  of  the  abstract  principles  now  being  developed 
will  presently  be  given,  in  which  this  generous  function 
of  alliteration  in  the  earliest  poetry  of  our  language 
will  be  illustrated.  Besides  this,  the  subject  will  be 
found  further  discussed,  under  the  head  of  the  Colors  of 
Verse,  in  Part  III.,  where  alliteration  is  treated  specially, 
not  as  the  mere  rhythmic  agency  which  gives  it  a  place 
in  the  present  discussion  of  rhythm,  but  as  an  independ- 
ent means  of  pleasure  to  the  ear  on  its  own  account 
as  a  co-ordination  of  tone-color. 

Another  species  of  tertiary  rhythm  remains  to  be 
mentioned,  belonging  to  this  class  because  its  grouping 
is  larger  than  that  of  the  bar  and  not  so  large  as  that 
of  the  line.  This  is  the  grouping  which  arises  from  the 
English  habit  of  placing  a  special  stress  of  voice  on  im- 
portant words,  or,  more  strictly,  on  the  important  sound 
of  important  words,  in  a  sentence.  Such  stress,  or  em- 


Tertiary  Grouping  by  Emphatic   Words.    85 

phasis,  if  closely  examined,  is  found  usually  to  consist 
not  only  of  an  increase  in  the  intensity,  but  also  of  a 
change  in  the  pitch,  of  the  voice.  If  the  conduct  of 
the  voice  in  uttering  the  first  line  of  Horatio's  speech 
above-cited,  for  example,  be  closely  watched,  it  will  be 
found  that  on  certain  sounds  —  varying  with  differing 
readers,  to  some  extent  —  a  reader  will  not  only  make 
a  stress  somewhat  heavier  in  intensity  than  that  of  the 
verse-accent  already  described  as  marking  each  bar- 
group,  but  will  slightly  sharpen  the  pitch  of  the  voice  : 
thus, 

' So  have  I  heard,  and  do  in part\>zlieve  it." 

This  accent,  consisting  both  of  an  increase  of  inten- 
sity and  a  change  in  pitch  (generally  a  heightening  or 
sharpening  of  pitch,  but,  observe,  by  no  means  always), 
is  a  characteristic  means  in  English  speech  for  indi- 
cating words  which  strike  the  speaker  as  important,  or 
to  which  the  speaker  wishes  to  call  a  hearer's  special 
attention.  The  function  of  such  intensity-and-pitch 
accent  appears  very  clearly  in  all  antithetical  proposi- 
tions ;  and,  if  the  reader  once  catches  the  exact  move- 
ment of  the  voice  in  the  comparatively  exaggerated  use 
of  this  accent  for  such  a  purpose,  he  will  be  able  to 
trace  it  easily  in  those  less  striking  uses  of  it  where  it 
is  employed,  not  for  a  direct  and  complete  antithesis,  but 
for  the  indirect  and  incomplete  antithesis  implied  in 
merely  singling  out  a  comparatively  important  word 
from  among  comparatively  unimportant  ones.  For  this 
purpose,  notice  the  movement  of  the  voice  —  it  is 
really  part  of  a  tune  of  the  voice,  commonly  employed 
for  this  purpose,  and  universally  recognized  —  in  en- 
forcing the  antithesis  between  "dumb"  and  "speak"  in 


86  Science  of  English   Verse. 

the  last  part  of  Horatio's  speech  above-cited,  as  well  as 
the  antithesis  between  "us"  and  "him.',' 

"  For,  upon  my  life, 
This  spirit,  dumb  to  us,  will  speak  to  him" 

We  are  here  brought  to  make  a  distinction  of  the 
gravest  importance  between  the  rhythmic  accent  (or 
slight  increase  in  intensity  alone,  which  is  of  universal 
use  in  all  music  and  in  English  verse  to  mark  off  the 
sounds  into  the  groups  called  bars)  and  the  logical  ac- 
cent, which  is  used  to  make  the  above  words,  "dumb," 
"speak,"  "us,"  and  "him,"  more  prominent  than  the 
other  words  in  the  sentence.  Let  the  reader  carefully 
discriminate :  — 

(1)  that  the  rhythmic   accent   consists   of   increased 
intensity  alone,  while  the  logical  accent  consists  of  this 
and  the  change  in  pitch  beside ; 

(2)  that  the  rhythmic  accent  is  the  mark  of  a  bar  in 
all   music    and   in  all  English  verse,  while  the  logical 
accent  has  no  necessary  connection  with  the  bar ; 

(3)  that  the  rhythmic  accent  is  of  absolutely  regular 
recurrence,  so  regular  that  the  musical  system  of  nota- 
tion always  considers  it  a  matter  of  course  as  occurring 
on  the  first  note  of  each  bar  and  does  not  mark  it  save 
where,  as  in  rare  cases  for  some  special  effect  of  inter- 
rupting the  rhythm,  the  musician  desires  to  accent  some 
note  other  than  the  first  in  the  bar,  even  in  which  event 
the    rhythmic    accent   is   still    indispensable    and    only 
transferred  from  the  first  note  to  some  other,  —  while 
the  logical  accent  is  of  irregtilar  recurrence,  depending 
upon  the  number  of  relatively  important  words  in  the 
phrase  or  sentence ; 

(4)  that,  as   a   corollary  from  the  last  circumstance, 


Rhythmic  and  Logical  Accent.  87 

the  logical  accent  will  scarcely  ever  be  given  exactly  the 
same  place  by  two  consecutive  readers,  because  the 
relative  importance  of  any  particular  idea  to  several 
other  ideas  will  strike  different  minds  differently  ac- 
cording to  a  great  number  of  circumstances  —  mental 
constitution,  previous  training,  mood  of  the  moment  — 
and  will  even  be  often  simulated  unintentionally  where 
it  is  not  felt,  through  vague  and  careless  habits  of  read-- 
ing acquired  in  childhood,  —  while  the  rhythmical  ac- 
cent would  be  placed  upon  exactly  the  same  point  of 
each  bar  by  any  ten  thousand  readers  of  either  a  piece 
of  music  or  a  piece  of  verse ; 

(5)  that,  as  may  be  anticipated  from  the  preceding 
remark,  the  effect  of  the  rhythmic  accent  is  to  establish 
a  definite  rhythm  for  the  ear,  while  that  of  the  logical 
accent  is  to  dfoestablish  this  rhythm  by  differently 
timed  recurrences  which  set  up  different  groupings  of 
two,  three,  or  more  bars. 

Let  it  be  further  observed  that  the  logical  accent 
nearly  always  falls  upon  a  sound  already  distinguished 
by  the  rhythmic  accent  and  thus  re-enforces  the  latter. 

The  distinction  between  these  two  species  of  accent 
has  been  dwelt  upon  with  particularity  because  the  fail- 
ure to  observe  it  has  caused  a  number  of  mischievous 
errors  in  several  otherwise  authoritative  modern  treatises 
upon  the  versification  of  Chaucer  and  of  Shakspere. 
These  are  pointed  out  in  the  special  treatment  of  this 
subject  following. 

After  the  foregoing  brief  preliminary  outline  of  the 

three  species  of  tertiary  rhythm,  we  may  now  advance 

to  the  next  larger  grouping  of  bars  usually  called  the 

Line,  which,  as  being  a  process  strictly  in  extension  of 

.those  hitherto  detailed  as  primary,  secondary,  and  ter- 


88  Science  of  English   Verse. 

tiary,  rhythm,  we  may  consistently  classify  as  a  fourth 
order  of  rhythm.  The  term  "  Metre  "  has  in  process  of 
time  come  to  be  very  generally  used  in  this  same  sense, 
as  denoting  the  number  (Metron,  measure)  of  verse- 
sounds  in  a  line,  giving  rise  in  hymnology  to  such 
expressions  as  "long  metre,"  "short  metre,"  and  the 
like.  As  the  first  order  of  rhythm  is  marked  off  for 
the  ear  by  duration  of  sound-compared-with-sound ;  the 
second  order  by  the  rhythmic  accent,  marking  bar-com- 
pared-with-bar ;  and  the  third  order  by  the  phrase-rest, 
(ist  species)  the  alliterative  tone-color  (2nd  species)  and 
the  logical  accent  (3rd  species) ;  so  the  fourth  order 
of  rhythm,  the  line-group  or  metre,  is  marked  Off  for 
the  ear  by  either  the  rest  —  as  in  blank  verse  —  or  the 
rhyme  ;  and  both  of  these  are  usually  re-enforced  by  a 
characteristic  change  in  the  pitch  of  the  voice. 

Use  of  the  rest  in  marking  off  the  line-group  in  blank 
verse.     In  the  lines, 

(1)  But  look,  the  morn,  in  russet  mantle  clad, 

(2)  Walks  o'er  the  dew  of  yon  high  eastern  hill, 

a  rest  is  made  after  "  clad  "  which  calls  the  attention  of 
the  ear  to  the  group  of  bars  (i)  embraced  by  "But" 
and  "  clad  "  inclusive  ;  a  similar  rest  is  made  after  "  hill  " 
in  the  next  line,  which  calls  the  attention  to  the  group 
of  bars  (2)  embraced  by  "Walks"  and  "hill  "  inclusive. 
Thus  the  ear  is  able  to  compare  these  two  fourth-order 
groups,  (i)  and  (2),  and  to  draw  its  peculiar  pleasure 
from  finding  their  rhythmic  equality  emerging  above  all 
the  varied  phenomena  of  lesser  rhythms,  of  tune,  and 
of  tone-color,  which  they  present. 

In  this  connection,  where  our  development  has  now 
reached  a  stage  of  some  complexity,  it  will  be  useful  to 


Fourth  Order  of  Rhythmic  Groups.         89 

mention  that  if  the  reader  should  be  surprised  at  being 
told  that  the  ear  in  hearing  verse  (or  the  imagination 
of  the  ear,  in  reading  or  conceiving  verse)  actually 
makes,  and  draws  pleasure  from,  all  these  varied  co-ordi- 
nations upon  which  the  groupings  already  described 
depend,  that  surprise  will  vanish  when  it  is  found  that 
these  groupings,  numerous  as  they  seem,  form  but  a 
small  proportion  of  the  items  actually  apprehended  and 
co-ordinated  by  the  ear  of  every  ordinary  person  — 
items  which  embrace  not  only  the  phenomena  of  dura- 
tion now  under  discussion,  but  many  widely-differing 
phenomena  of  pitch  manifesting  themselves  as  deli- 
cately-shaded tunes,  and  phenomena  of  tone-color  mani- 
festing themselves  in  the  complex  forms  enumerated 
under  that  head  in  Part  III.  The  hourly  habit  of 
making  all,  or  most  of,  these  co-ordinations,  involved  in 
the  most  commonplace  uses  of  language,  is  apt  to  blind 
us  to  the  truly  wonderful  powers  of  the  ear  in  these 
particulars  until  our  attention  is  specially  called  to 
them. 

But,  to  return  to  the  line-group  as  marked  off  by  the 
rest :  the  reader  is  asked  to  observe  particularly  that  a 
large  number  of  sound-groups  printed  as  lines  in  blank 
verse  are  really  not  lines  to  the  ear  at  all  and  are 
deceptive  if  estimated  as  such  in  theories  of  the  versifi- 
cation of  special  writers.  For  example :  in  the  speech 
of  Horatio  cited,  the  group 

Let  us  impart  what  we  have  seen  to-night 

though  printed  as  a  line  to  the  eye  is  really  no  group 
to  the  ear ;  the  close  connection  of  the  sense  at  the 
end  of  this  line  with  the  beginning  of  the  next  line  pre- 
vents any  such  rest  after  the  sound  "  night "  as  would 


90  Science  of  English   Verse. 

mark-off  the  line  for  the  ear,  and  the  actual  grouping 
is  not  made  until  the  ear  feels  the  rest  which  occurs 
after  the  word  "  Hamlet  "  in  the  next  line.  The  real 
rhythmic  group  here,  then,  is 

Let  us  impart  what  we  have  seen  to-night  unto  young  Hamlet. 

Such   a    group   would   be    the   following   from     The 

Tempest : 

Had  I  been  any  god  of  power,  I  would 
Have  sunk  the  sea  within  the  earth,  .  .  . 

where  the  phrase  "  I  would  have  sunk  "  demands  such 
a  continuous  pronunciation  as  forbids  any  rest  after 
"would,"  so  that  the  actual  line-group  for  the  ear  is 

Had  I  been  any  god  of  power  I  would  have  sunk  the  sea  within 
the  earth ; 

or,  again,  a  line  ending  in  a  preposition  immediately 
connected  with  its  noun  at  the  beginning  of  the  next 
line,  like 

Master  of  this  design)  did  give  us  :  with 
Rich  garments,  linens,  stuffs,  and  necessaries, 

where  "with"  runs  the  voice  on  to  its  noun  "gar- 
ments "  so  as  to  preclude  the  line-group  rest. 

Such  incomplete  groups  have  acquired  the  special 
name  of  "  run-on  "  lines,  in  distinction  from  those  com- 
plete groups  which  from  their  being  marked-off  by  a 
stop  or  rest  at  the  end  are  called  "end-stopped"  lines. 
This  distinction  has  acquired  great  importance  in 
modern  Shakspere  criticism.  It  has  been  found  that 
in  his  earlier  works  Shakspere  used  the  end-stopped 
line  almost  exclusively,  while  in  his  later  works  he  used 
a  much  greater  proportion  of  run-on  lines ;  and  this 
progress  from  the  stiff  versification  of  the  inexorably 


The  Run-on  Line  in  Shakspere.  91 

end-stopped  line  to  the  freer  and  richer  rhythms  of  the 
run-on  line  would  seem  to  be  clearly  an  accompaniment 
of  a  parallel  growth  in  Shakspere's  whole  nature  from 
the  limited  views  of  his  earlier  manhood  to  the  wise 
and  large  freedom  of  his  maturity. 

Inasmuch  as  these  are  matters  which  we  can  count : 
inasmuch  as  we  can  discover  exactly  the  numerical  pro- 
portion of  run-on  lines  to  the  whole  number  of  lines  in 
an  early  play  like  Love's  Labor's  Lost,  and  can  then  com- 
pare this  proportion  to  that  of  such  lines  in  a  late  play 
like  The  Tempest ;  it  will  be  seen  that  this  change  in 
the  line-group  constitutes  a  delicate  and  precise  indica- 
tion of  Shakspere's  growth  as  an  artist  and  thence  of 
his  growth  as  a  man. 

It  cannot  escape  notice,  however,  that  the  free  use  of 
the  run-on  line  in  Shakspere's  later  plays  is  really  an 
escape  from  metre.  Allowing  "  metre  "  to  mean,  as  in 
hymnology,  the  line-group,  all  metrical  verse  in  Eng- 
lish implies  a  succession  of  lines  which  are  either  equal 
to  each  other  or  proportionate  in  a  simple  and  regularly- 
recurrent  way.  Thus  blank  verse  is,  in  type,  a  succes- 
sion of  lines  each  having  five  bars,  and  each  therefore 
exactly  equal  to  each  in  duration  ;  while  in  irregular 
rhymed  compositions  the  lines  may  often  be  unequal, 
but  the  shorter  or  longer  line  usually  recurs  in  the 
same  position  and  thus  notifies  the  ear  of  the  regularly- 
recurrent  proportion.  This  is  the  case  except  in  the 
ode :  and  we  must  therefore  class  Shakspere's  later 
verse,  as  odes  should  be  classed,  among  that  noble  and 
free  species  of  verse  which  is  really  a  prose  throughout 
which  some  secondary  rhythm  (iambic,  trochaic  or  the 
like)  is  consistently  carried.  All  English  prose  is 
rhythmic  so  far  as  the  primary  rhythm  of  sound  com- 


92  Science  of  English   Verse. 

pared  with  sound  is  concerned,  and  so  far  as  the  group- 
ing of  sounds  into  words  is  concerned  :  but  one  word 
may  be  a  trochee,  the  next  an  iambus,  the  next  a  dactyl, 
and  so  on,  and  this  inequality  in  the  successive  bars  de- 
stroys the  secondary  rhythm  which  is  dependent  upon 
the  absolute  equality  in  the  time-contents  of  any  bar 
compared  with  any  other  bar.  When  this  equality  is 
maintained, — that  is,  when  the  secondary  rhythm  se- 
lected (whether  that  of  the  iambus,  the  trochee,  the 
dactyl  &c.)  is  carried  on  throughout  the  piece,  —  then 
we  have  a  true  rhythmic  prose  such  as  is  presented  by 
the  ode,  and  by  the  blank  verse  of  Shakspere's  later 
plays :  it  is  only  when  the  bars  of  this  secondary 
rhythm  are  further  grouped,  upon  some  regular  system, 
—  either  of  equality,  line  for  line,  or  of  shorter  line 
regularly  alternating  with  longer  line,  —  that  the  ear  is 
able  to  make  those  exact  co-ordinations  of  line  with 
line  which  should  be  called  fourth-order  rhythm  or 
metre. 

But  reserving  further  detail  of  this  matter  until  its 
special  discussion,  let  us  now  consider  the  other  method 
mentioned,  —  of  indicating  the  line-group,  or  fourth- 
order  rhythm,  by  the  recurrence  of  rhyme  at  the  end  of 
the  line. 

For  example :  in 

For  as  the  sun  is  daily  new  and  old, 
So  is  my  love,  still  telling  what  is  told, 

the  recurrence  of  the  compound  tone-color  "  old  "  calls 
the  attention  of  the  ear  to  the  end  of  each  of  the  lines, 
and  thus  groups  together  for  the  ear  all  the  sounds  in 
each  line,  enabling  it  to  make  rhythmic  comparison  of 
line  with  line. 


Rhythmic  Use  of  Rhyme.  93 

The  group  marked-off  by  the  rhyme,  though  in  most 
cases  the  line-group,  is  of  course  not  necessarily  so,  and 
may  be  either  smaller  or  larger.  For  examples  of  smaller 
groups  :  in 

And  the  silken  sad  uncertain  rustling  of  each  purple  curtain 
Thrilled  me,  filled  me  with  fantastic  terrors  never  felt  before 

the  recurrent  tone-color,  "-ertain  "  "-urtain  "  marks  off 
the  first  line  into  two  half-lines,  while  the  "illed," 
"illed,"  of  "thrilled,"  "filled,"  marks  off  only  the  two 
first  bars  of  the  second  line  into  an  agreeable  sporadic 
group. 

For  example  of  larger  group  than  the  line  marked 
off  by  rhyme  or  recurrent  tone-color :  in 

That  time  of  year  thou  may'st  in  me  behold, 
When  yellow  leaves,  or  none,  or  few,  do  hang 

Upon  those  boughs  which  shake  against  the  cold, 
Bare  ruin'd  choirs,  where  late  the  sweet  birds  sang, 

the  tone-color  "  -old  "  at  the  end  of  the  first  line  does 
not  recur  until  the  end  of  the  third,  while  the  tone- 
color  "-ang"  at  the  end  of  the  second  line  does  not 
recur  until  the  end  of  the  fourth,  and  the  effect  is  to  set 
up  a  grouping  for  the  ear  of  two  lines  against  two  lines. 
It  is  evident  that  an  analogous  process  could  be  used  to 
group  lines  by  threes,  or  fours,  though  of  course  if  a 
rhyme  recur  at  a  much  greater  distance  than  this  the 
effect  is  lost,  by  the  ear's  forgetting  the  corresponding 
tone-color  in  the  multitude  of  intervening  tone-colors. 
As  in  the  case  of  the  alliterative  group  before  de- 
scribed :  this  purely  rhythmical  function  of  rhyme  must 
be  clearly  discriminated  from  the  independent  function 
of  rhyme  as  a  pleasurable  co-ordination  of  tone-colors 
for  their  own  sake.  Of  the  two  functions,  the  rhythmic 


94  Science  of  English   Verse. 

would  seem  to  be  the  most  worthy,  and  probably  any 
future  development  of  rhyme  in  our  language  should 
be  along  this  direction  —  of  marking-off  new  sets  of 
rhythmic  groups  either  metrically,  that  is,  regularly,  or 
unmetrically,  that  is,  for  an  agreeable  variation  of  mo- 
notonous rhythm. 

A  method  of  indicating  the  line-group  to  the  ear  by  a 
certain  intonation  of  the  voice  somewhat  like  that  used 
in  the  intoned  service  of  the  Roman  Catholic  church  to 
denote  the  occurrence  of  the  comma  is  often  adopted 
by  readers ;  but  it  is  not  general  enough  to  merit  more 
than  this  brief  mention  here,  as  a  possible  means  of 
marking-off  the  line-group  by  recurrent  variations  in 
pitch. 

A  fifth  order  of  groups  is  included  in  the  Stanza. 

For  example.     In  Ophelia's  song, 

How  should  I  your  true  love  know 

From  another  one  ? 
By  his  cockle  hat  and  staff, 

And  his  sandal  shoon, 

is  a  group  of  four  line-groups,  marked  off  by  a  distinct 
rest  from  the  next  similar  group, 

He  is  dead  and  gone,  lady, 

He  is  dead  and  gone  ; 
At  his  head  a  grass-green  turf, 

At  his  heels  a  stone. 

These  two  groups  being  always  of  four  lines  each  can 
thus  be  compared  by  the  ear,  stanza  with  stanza;  and 
their  size  —  larger  than  the  line  and  smaller  than  the 
poem  —  suggests  their  classification  as  a  fifth  order  of 
rhythm. 

And  thus  finally  we  reach  the  sixth  and  last  order 


Fifth  and  Sixth  Orders  of  Rhythm.        95 

of  rhythmic  groups,  which  consists  of  a  group  of  the 
stanza-groups  varying  from  a  single  four-lined  stanza, 
or  from  the  fourteen-lined  stanza  of  the  sonnet,  to 
scores  and  hundreds  of  stanzas,  and  which,  embracing 
all  the  rhythmic  contents  of  any  complete  composition 
in  verse,  is  called  the  Poem. 

The  foregoing  outline  of  the  progressive  series  of 
rhythmic  groups  into  which  the  ear  co-ordinates  the 
whole  body  of  verse-sounds  presented  to  it  by  a  formal 
poem  has  been  purposely  made  as  abstract  as  possible, 
in  order  that  the  whole  process  of  rhythmic  co-ordination 
might  be  presented  in  a  continuous  view,  uninterrupted 
by  practical  illustrations  except  where  these  seemed 
necessary  to  the  explanation  of  particular  steps. 

This  view  has  now  revealed  to  us  that  the  sounds  of 
English  verse  suggest  to  the  ear  six  methods  by  which 
they  can  be  compared  as  to  their  relative  duration, 
sound  with  sound,  or  group-of-sounds  with  group-of- 
sounds ;  and  that  these  suggestions  are  conveyed  by 
certain  recurrent  relations  of  duration,  or  of  intensity, 
or  of  pitch,  or  of  tone-color ;  the  varying  effects  of 
which,  as  just  detailed,  combine  to  exhibit  to  the  ear, 

(1)  The  relative  duration  of  each  primary  unit  or  indi- 
vidual  verse-sound   ("syllable")  constituting  what 
may  he  scientifically  termed  the  first  order  of  rhythm 

and  what  is  commonly  termed QUANTITY. 

(2)  The   relative  duration  of   each  secondary  unit,  or 
individual   group   of   verse-sounds  (the   bar,  some- 
times also  called  "measure,"  same  as  the  classic 
"  foot  "X   constituting  what    may  be    scientifically 
termed  the  second  order  of  rhythm  and  what  is 
commonly  termed      .......  RHYTHM. 

(3)  The  relative  duration  of  each  tertiary  unit,  or  larger 
individual   group   of   verse-sounds  (the  "phrase"), 


96  Science  of  English   Verse. 

constituting  what  may  be  scientifically  termed  the 
third  order  of  rhythm,  which  divides  into    .         .  THE  PHRASE, 

THE  ALLITERATIVE  GROUP,  AND 
THE  EMPHATIC  WORD  GROUP. 

(4)  The  relative  duration  of  each  fourth-order  unit, 
or  still  larger  group  of  verse-sounds,  (the  "  line"), 
constituting  what   may  be   scientifically  termed 
the  fourth   order  of   rhythm  and  what  is  com- 
monly termed        .......  METRE. 

(5)  The  relative  duration  of  each  fifth-order  unit,  or 
still  larger  group  of  verse-sounds  (the  "  stanza  ") 
constituting  what   may  be   scientifically  termed 
the  fifth  order  of  rhythm  and  what  is  commonly 
termed  in  English  the  verse  or  more  correctly 

the STANZA. 

(6)  The   final  rhythmic  group  embracing  all  these 

and  called      ....  ...  THE  POEM. 

Inasmuch  as  these  six  orders  of  grouping  embrace  all 
the  phenomena  of  rhythm  in  English  verse,  they  afford 
us  convenient  divisions  for  an  exhaustive  discussion  of 
that  subject.  To  this  the  next  six  chapters  will  be 
devoted. 


Quantity.  97 


CHAPTER   III. 

SPECIAL  DISCUSSION  OF  THE  RELATIVE  DURATION,  OR 
QUANTITY,  OF  ENGLISH  VERSE-SOUNDS,  AS  CONSTI- 
TUTING PRIMARY  RHYTHM. 

So  much  was  necessary  to  be  said  upon  this  subject 
by  way  of  anticipation  that  the  special  treatment  in 
the  present  chapter  may  confine  itself  to  the  following 
four  points : 

(1)  to   showing  that,  since  rhythm    always   depends 
necessarily  upon  quantity,  those  who  deny  the  exist- 
ence  of   quantity   in    English    sounds    must   deny  the 
possibility  of  rhythm  in  English  verse ; 

(2)  to  setting  forth  a  complete   system    of   notation 
adequate   to   express    with   precision    all    the   possible 
rhythmic  relations  of  English  verse-sounds  ; 

(3)  to   illustrating   how   printed   or  written    English 
words  constitute  a  system  of  notation  for  rhythm,  pre- 
cise as  to  the  larger  orders  of  rhythm,  but  susceptible 
of  varying  interpretations  as  to  primary  rhythm,  to  the 
extent  of  minute  differences  of  utterance  which  do  not 
affect  the  essential  proportions  of  the  bar ; 

(4)  to  showing  how  the  liberty  of  arranging  at  pleas- 
ure the  individual  time-relations  (or  primary  rhythm) 
of   the  constituent  sounds  in  any  bar,  so  long  as  the 
normal  time-value  of  the  bar  is  preserved,  is  availed  of 
by  poets  to  make  their  rhythms  melodious,  varied,  and 
characteristic. 

The  demonstration    heretofore   given   of   the  neces- 


98  Science  of  English   Verse. 

sary  dependence  of  rhythm  upon  quantity  may  now  be 
specially  applied  as  against  the  opinion  that  in  English 
verse  it  is  accent,  and  not  quantity,  which  is  the  basis 
of  rhythm.  This  opinion  has  prevailed  among  some 
recent  scholars  of  the  greatest  eminence  who,  engaged 
in  researches  not  directly  turning  upon  any  minute  in- 
vestigation of  the  true  nature  of  rhythm,  have  evidently 
adopted  without  examination  an  idea  which  appears  to 
have  obtained  great  currency  under  the  authority  of 
Coleridge.  For  example,  Mr.  Alexander  J.  Ellis,  whose 
name  no  English  student  can  mention  without  a  new 
sense  of  grateful  obligation  for  the  wonderful  skill  with 
which  he  has  renewed  in  our  ears  the  actual  living 
tones  of  the  daily  speech  of  our  forefathers,  remarks  (in 
his  Early  English  Pronunciation*  Part  I.,  p.  334,  note 
i) :  "The  length  of  syllables"  —  meaning  English  sylla- 
bles—  "has  much  to  do  with  the  force  and  character  of 
a  verse,  but  does  not  form  part  of  its  rhythmical  laws." 
Again,  Mr.  E.  A.  Abbot,  in  A  Shakespearian  Grammar,2 
p.  332,  note,  explains  that  "the  words  'trochaic'  and 
'iambic'  are  of  course  used,  when  applied  to  English 
poetry,  to  denote  accent,  not  quantity."  So  in  the  essay 
on  Alliterative  Metre  by  Mr.  E.  E.  Hale  it  is  remarked : 
"whilst  it  is  pretty  clear  that  it"  (English  prosody)  "is 
based  on  ...  an  accentual  .  .  .  not  on  a  temporal 
system,  &c."  3 

This  misconception  has  arisen  out  of  the  failure  to 
discriminate  primary  rhythm  from  secondary  rhythm. 
We  have  seen  how  the  rhythmical  accent  is  used  both 
in  music  and  in  verse  to  lay-off  a  series  of  sounds  into 

1  Chaucer  Society  Edition.  2  Macmillan  &  Co.,  London,  1871. 

3  Printed  in  Hale's  and  Furnivall's  edition  of  Bishop  Percy's  Manu- 
script. 


Experimental  Test  of  Accent.  99 

the  well-known  groups  called  "  bars  "  or  "  measures  " 
in  music  and  "feet"  in  classic  prosody.  But  we  have 
also  seen  that  this  is  by  no  means  a  creation  of  rhythm, 
but  is  merely  an  arrangement  of  pre-existing  rhythms 
which  exist  in  virtue  of  the  simple  time-relations  be- 
tween the  units  of  sound.  It  is  easy  to  ascertain  by 
practical  experiment  that  unless  these  simple  time- 
relations  do  pre-exist,  no  grouping  by  accents  can  give 
any  rhythmical  character  whatever  to  the  series  of 
sounds.  The  experiment  may  be  made  still  more  con- 
clusive by  showing  that  even  where  simple  time-rela- 
tions exist  among  the  constituent  sounds,  unless  these 
follow  each  other  in  such  an  order  that  the  sum  of  the 
times  included  between  any  two  accents  is  exactly  equal 
to  the  sum  of  the  times  included  between  any  other  two 
accents,  no  rhythmization  can  possibly  be  effected  by 
accents.  As  a  simple  form  of  such  an  experiment,  take 
the  following. 

Remembering  that  each  verse-sound  must  necessarily 
occupy  some  time,  and  that  any  two  consecutive  verse- 
sounds  must  therefore  necessarily  possess  some  time- 
relation  to  each  other ;  let  us  suppose  a  series  of  twelve 
verse-sounds  whose  relations  in  time  are  as  follows 
("C"  representing  a  sound  half  as  long  as  "f,"  and  "£" 
one  half  as  long  as  "f  ") : 

r  i  *  t  r  t  :  r  t  t  r  r 

Any  effort  to  group  these  sounds  into  rhythm  by  ac- 
cents will  prove  utterly  futile.  If  for  instance  we  mark 
them  off  into  bars  or  feet  consisting  of  two  sounds  each 
by  placing  an  accent  over  the  first  note  of  each  bar,  the 
series  would  be : 


ioo  Science  of  English   Verse. 


r 


r 


Here  are  six  bars,  or  feet,  so  far  as  accent  can  make 
them  so  :  each  bar  consists  of  exactly  the  same  number 
of  sounds :  but  there  is  no  rhythm.  Although  the  ac- 
cent recurs  regularly  upon  every  second  sound,  rhythm 
is  wholly  absent.  It  is  easy  to  see  that  this  absence  is 
due  to  the  fact  that  although  the  accent  recurs  regu- 
larly as  to  the  number  of  the  sounds,  it  does  not  recur 
regularly  as  to  time  ;  and  that  this  latter  sort  of  recur- 
rence can  only  be  secured  by  making  the  time-contents 
of  every  bar  exactly  equal. 

It  cannot  be  necessary  to  carry  this  experiment,  here, 
into  the  farther  trials  of  dividing  up  the  given  verse- 
sounds  into  groups  of  three  sounds  each,  or  of  four 
sounds  each,  &c.,  by  placing  an  accent  on  every  third 
sound,  or  every  fourth  sound,  &c. 

It  will,  however,  be  profitable  to  consider  this  experi- 
ment in  its  bearing  upon  music.  The  above  notes  are 
intended  to  represent  the  relative  times  of  words  in  a 
line  of  verse.  But  suppose  them  to  represent  musical 
tones :  let  any  one,  in  considering  this  experiment,  re- 
flect how  vain  would  be  the  effort  to  set-up  any  rhythm 
in  music  by  using  accents  at  every  two,  three,  or  other 
number  of  tones  without  reference  to  the  time-value  of 
those  tones.  The  result  of  such  an  effort  may  be  actu- 
ally heard  by  striking  on  the  piano  the  notes  above 
given  with  an  accent  on  every  second,  third,  or  other, 
tone.  It  is  without  rhythm. 

But  perhaps  the  most  conclusive  method  of  settling 
this  question  is  to  present  an  experiment  in  which  —  as 
constantly  happens  in  all  beautiful  verse  —  the  rhythm 


Accent  cannot  rhythmize  Silences.         101 

is  absolutely  dependent  upon  measured  silences,  or 
rests,  instead  of  measured  sounds.  Of  course,  since  we 
cannot  pronounce  silences,  nor  distinguish  one  silence 
from  another  silence  by  an  accent,  it  must  be  immedi- 
ately seen  that  all  possible  rhythmic  function  of  silence 
depends  upon  its  duration,  the  only  method  of  distin- 
guishing one  silence  Arom  another  silence  being  to  note 
their  relative  time.  In  short,  what  we  call  a  rest,  in 
music  and  in  verse,  is  practically  nothing  more  than  the 
time  elapsing  between  two  sounds.  Since,  therefore, 
accent  can  indicate  only  a  certain  number  of  sounds 
without  reference  to  their  time-value,  and  cannot  indi- 
cate silences  at  all  :  if  the  rhythm  of  Tennyson's  verse 
given  below  is  clearly  dependent  upon  silences,  it  must 
be  as  clearly  ///dependent  of  accents. 

To  show  that  it  is  dependent  upon  silences :  let  the 
following  rhythmic  scheme  be  played  on  the  piano. 


Andante. 


Upon  hearing  this  strain,  every  ear  will  accept  it  as  a 
substantial  reproduction  J  of  the  rhythmic  movement  of 
the  voice  in  reciting  the  following  stanza : 

1  It  is  an  exact  reproduction  of  the  type  :  and  the  term  "  substantial  " 
is  used  merely  to  hint  at  those  minor  individual  habits  of  pronunciation 
which  might  make  the  first  note  representing  "  Break  "  (for  example)  an 

instead  of  the  [  here  assigned  to  it,  but  which  in  no  way  affect  the 
relation  of  bar  to  bar,  or  the  general  type  of  the  rhythm :  see  the  end 
of  this  chapter. 


IO2  Science  of  English   Verse. 

Break,  break,  break, 
On  thy  cold  gray  stones,  0  sea : 
And  I  would  that  my  tongue  could  utter 
The  thoughts  that  arise  in  me. 

But,  examining  the  noted  scheme,  it  is  seen  that  in  the 
first  line  one-third  of  the  time  of  the  three  opening 
bars,  and  two-thirds  of  the  time  of  the  fourth  bar,  is 
silence  :  for  the  sign  i  indicates  a  silence  of  the  length 
of  an  f  and  the  musical  mark  o  at  the  beginning  is  only 

a  short  way  of  saying  that  the  series  of  sounds  is 
to  be  grouped  into  threes,  and  that  every  bar  is  to  have 
the  time-value  of  three  eighth-notes  (f's),  though,  of 
course,  this  time-value  may  be  made-up  by  any  combi- 
nation of  sounds  whose  sum  amounts  to  three  f's  (as  a 

f  and  an  ff ;  or  f  f  f  ;  or  as  f" '  j*  f[  where  ~£"  with 
the  dot  is  equal  to  ii  j*'s,  *  is  equal  to  \  an  f,  and  f  is 

equal  to  I  eighth-note,  so  that  i£  -|-  i  +  J  —  3  T's  or 
eighth-notes)  or  by  any  combination  of  sounds  and 
silences,  or  of  silences  alone,  occupying  the  time  of  3 
f's.  In  short,  inspection  of  the  scheme  reveals  that 
more  than  one-third  of  the  first  line,  and  quite  one-third 
of  each  of  the  remaining  three  lines,  are  made  up  en- 
tirely of  silences.  Now  these  silences,  or  rests,  are  of 
differing  time-relations  among  themselves.  Of  course 
no  application  of  accent  could  distinguish  a  quarter-rest 
from  an  eighth-rest  or  three  quarter-rests  ;  nor  could 
accent  even  indicate  the  existence  of  a  single  one  of 
the  rests  in  this  poem.  On  the  other  hand,  if  accent 
were  abolished  :  if  the  above  notes  were  struck  by  a 
machine  incapable  of  varying  the  strength  of  its  stroke 
—  that  is,  incapable  of  stress  or  rhythmic  accent,  or 
upon  a  drum  incapable  of  variation  in  pitch  —  that  is, 


Relation  of  Accent  to  Rhythm.  103 

incapable  of  logical  accent :  the  result  would  still  be 
accepted  by  every  ear  as  unequivocally  and  pleasingly 
rhythmical  by  virtue  of  the  clearly-co-ordinable  time- 
relations  of  the  sounds  and  silerfces  involved. 

The  true  relation  of  accent  to  rhythm  in  verse  will 
be  found  illustrated  in  the  next  chapter.  The  reader 
will  always  keep  the  mind  clear  upon  this  matter  by 
remembering : 

(1)  that  no  one  has  ever  thought  of  referring  rhythm 
in  music  to  any  other  principle  than   the  exact  time- 
relations  among  its  sounds  and  silences  ; 

(2)  that   rhythm    in   verse  is  precisely  the   same   as 
rhythm  in  music,  the  sole  difference  being  that  one  is 
suggested   to   the   ear  by  speech-sounds,  the  other  by 
music-sounds ; 

(3)  that  the  office  of  accent  cannot  begin  until  after 
rhythm    is   established  ;    when  accent  may  be  used  to 
suggest  various  secondary  arrangements  of  the  primary 
rhythmic  material   into  groups  or  bars  :   but  that  this 
office  is  still  absolutely  dependent  upon  time  or  dura- 
tion,  the  sole    use   of   the   accent   (even   in.  arranging 
rhythmic  material)  being  that  it  recurs  at  stated  periods 
of  time.     Let  the  idea  of  the  rhythmic  accent  be  insepa- 
rably associated  with  that  of  the  bar.     Neither  the  bar 
nor  the  accent  is  essential  to  rhythm.     In  point  of  fact 
the  division  into  bars  seems  to  be  comparatively  a  late 
refinement  in  music,  while  it  is  also  at  least  doubtful 
whether   this    division    in    classic   verse    (there    called 
"feet")  was  ever  marked-off  by  means  of  accent. 

Since  the  time-relations  of  verse-sounds  do  not  differ 
from  the  time-relations  of  music-sounds,  the  system  of 
noting  time-relations  which  serves  for  the  rhythms  of 
music  will  also  serve  for  the  rhythms  of  verse.  This 
system  is  as  follows. 


IO4  Science  of  English   Verse. 

The  sign  o,  called  a  "whole  note,"  stands  for  a 
sound  whose  duration  is  fixed  for  every  given  strain 
by  special  directions  at  the  beginning  of  that  strain. 
This  duration,  when  fixed,  of  course  fixes  the  duration 
of  all  the  other  notes  of  that  strain,  which  are  always 
aliquot  parts  of  the  whole  note.  For  precisely  fixing 
the  duration  of  the  whole  note  in  modern  music,  such 
signs  as  "f  =.  76,"  and  the  like,  are  used :  in  which  the 
reference  is  to  the  mark  76  on  a  metronome.  If  the 
index  of  the  metronome  —  which  may  be  simply  de- 
scribed as  a  graduated  pendulum,  kept  in  motion  by  a 
spring  which  is  wound  up  as  occasion  requires  —  be 
placed,  in  accordance  with  such  a  sign,  at  the  figure  76, 
then  the  measured  tick  of  the  instrument  will  give  the 
exact  rate  of  time  intended  by  the  composer. 

But  the  habits  and  traditions  of  music  have  established 
a  series  of  signs  for  this  standard  duration  which  refer 
to  rates  of  measurement  that  can  be  carried  in  the 
memory  from  day  to  day.  These  signs  are  the  words 
Presto,  Allegro,  Moderato,  Andante,  Adagio,  and  the 
like,  one  of.  which  may  always  be  seen  at  the  head  of  a 
given  strain.  Presto  means  very  fast:  Allegro  is 
brisk  and  lively ;  Moderato  is  relatively  moderate  in 
time;  Andante,  slower  than  Moderato;  Adagio,  slower 
than  Andante.  The  musician  early  learns  to  associate  a 
certain  rate  of  time  for  the  whole  note  with  each  of 
these  marks  ;  and,  by  constant  habit,  carries  this  rate 
in  his  memory,  to  such  a  degree  that  if  a  hundred  or  a 
thousand  good  musicians  be  asked  in  succession  to  play 
a  certain  Allegro,  or  Adagio,  or  other  movement,  their 
conceptions  of  the  time  will  be  found  to  vary  but  little 
from  each  other. 

Applying  this  principle    to    the    notation   for  verse- 


System  for  noting  Rhythm.  105 

movements  :  the  sign  ^  represents  a  tone  half  as  long 
as  that  represented  by  the  whole  tone,  and  is  called 
the  "  half-note  ;  "  f  is  the  quarter-note  ;  f  the  eighth- 
note  ;  and  0  the  sixteenth-note ;  beyond  which  the 
needs  of  verse  scarcely  extend,  though  music  employs 
sixty-fourths  and  even  one  hundred-and-tvventy-eighths. 
A  dot  affixed  to  a  note  adds  half  its  time-value  to  it :  as 

*  is  equal  to  0        •;  f  *  to  *     £;   and  so  on.     We 

shall  find  great  use  for  this  dot  in  noting  verse-rhythm, 
to  represent  the  very  common  primary  rhythm  indi- 
cated by  f  ^  *  in  English  utterance,  exemplified  in 

the  ninth  and  eleventh  bars  of  the  scheme  of  "  Break, 
break,  break,"  given  above.  This  sequence  occurs  so 
frequently  that  the  reader,  if  not  familiar  with  it,  should 
get  some  one  to  strike  it  on  a  piano-key.  The  knack 
of  it  comes  to  any  ordinary  ear  almost  immediately. 
Perhaps  it  will  be  suggested  to  many  by  recalling  the 
first  and  third  bars  of  the  familiar  negro-melody : 


Car  -   ry    me      back          to        old  .  .  .     Vir   -  gin  -  ny,  &c. 

in  which,  setting  aside  the  change  of  pitch,  the  rhythm 


rv  r 


The  rhythmical  form  •    »    »,  so  common  in  music, 

is  equally  so  in  verse,  and  many  habits  of  great  poets 
which  have  caused  the  widest  discussion  among  com- 
mentators are  nothing  more  than  the  employment  of 
this  sequence,  which  can  be  made  to  vary  the  iterant 


io6  Science  of  English   Verse. 

rhythm  of  a  long  poem  like  one  of  Shakspere's  plays 
in  a  charming  way.     •    •    »  is  called  a  "  triole,"   and 

means  that  the  three  notes  f  f  f  are  to  be  played  in 
the  time  of  i*  *,  that  is,  in  the  time  of  one  quarter-note. 
The  rhythmic  knack  of  doing  this  is  caught  with  the 
greatest  ease  by  nearly  all  persons  ;  and  the  reader,  if 
he  has  it  not  already,  should  get  any  musical  friend  to 
play  for  him  on  any  key  of  the  piano  the  following 
sequences : 
Moderate. 


Any  other  notes  may  be  formed  into  a  triole : 

for  example  means  that  the  three  notes  5     J    5  are  to 

v    v    v 

be  played  in  the  time  of  two  *     *  's,  or  of  one  * ;   so 
»»»  would  mean    that   the   three  f's  were   to   be 

played  in  the  time  of  two  f  's,  or  one  ? '. 

These  are  all  the  signs  of  primary  rhythm  which 
will  be  needful  to  express  those  phenomena  as  sug- 
gested by  verse-sounds,  when  we  add  the  signs  for 
rests,  viz. :  X  =  f ,  i  =  f,  3  —  *,  and  so  on,  the  longer 
rests  not  being  here  important. 

We  have  seen  that  written  or  printed  English  words 
themselves  constitute  a  system  of  notation  for  primary 
rhythm,  in  consequence  of  the  English  habit  of  rhyth- 
mic pronunciation,  which  results  in  associating  some 
sort  of  definite  time-relation  in  our  mind  with  each  word 
as  it  is  acquired,  so  that  the  time-relation  occurs  to 


Variations  in  Rhythmic  Utterance.        107 

us  when  we  see  the  word  in  print  or  writing.  This 
system  of  notation  is  clearly  sufficient  for  all  ordinary 
types  of  rhythm  :  the  poet  sends  out  his  poem  in  full 
confidence  that  the  printed  words  themselves  will  be 
sufficient  to  suggest  the  intended  rhythm  to  every 
reader.  This  being  so,  it  may  be  asked  what  necessity 
for  the  musical  system  of  notation  in  the  science  of 
verse  ?  The  answer  to  this  question  lies  in  the  develop- 
ment of  the  third  subdivision  mentioned  in  the  begin- 
ning of  this  chapter. 

While  the  general  rhythmus  of  each  word  of  more 
than  one  syllable  and  of  each  phrase  of  more  than  one 
sound  is  clearly  maintained  in  ordinary  English  utter- 
ance, the  precise  relations  of  consecutive  sounds  may 
vary,  with  various  individuals,  within  certain  narrow 
limits  which  do  not  affect  the  essential  proportions. 
For  example  :  in  the  first  line  of  the  scheme  of  "Break, 
break,  break "  given  above,  a  f  is  assigned  to  each  of 
the  sounds  "Break,  break,  break."  This  would  repre- 
sent a  sort  of  long  and  chanting  utterance  of  the  sound. 
But  there  are  many  who  use  a  quicker  method  of  utter- 
ance and  who  would  not  dwell  upon  this  sound  longer 
than  an  f.  In  such  case  the  first  line  of  the  scheme, 
instead  of  representing  each  of  these  sounds  by  a  f 
should  represent  it  by  an  f  and  complete  the  rhythmic 
proportion  of  the  bar  by  adding  another  rest  i,  thus 
replacing  the  f  with  an  f  and  an  i  which  are  together 
exactly  equal  to  the  f  in  time-value. 

The  reader  should  observe  this  substitution  of  a 
sound-plus-a-silence  (or  rest)  with  the  utmost  clearness 
of  conception  :  for  it  is  a  process  of  universal  application 
among  English  speakers,  and  it  accounts  for  the  fact  — 
which  has  been  unaccountable  to  many  persons  —  of 


io8  Science  of  English   Verse. 

the  perfect  preservation  of  the  essential  proportions 
of  a  given  rhythm  through  all  the  infinite  varieties  of 
individual  utterance.  A  hundred  readers  may  read  the 
"  Break,  break,  break "  in  succession,  and  no  two  of 
them  may  pronounce  every  sound  with  the  same  pri- 
mary rhythmic  relation  to  its  neighbor-sound ;  yet,  by 
the  unerring  rhythmic  instinct  of  the  ear,  every  varia- 
tion is '  so  arranged  that,  if  a  sound  be  shortened,  a 
compensatory  silence  between  it  and  the  next  sound 
will  be  correspondingly  lengthened, — as  in  the  case 
just  cited  where  the  sound  Break  was  shortened  from  a 
f  to  an  f ,  and  the  essential  proportion  of  the  bar  was 
nevertheless  maintained  intact  by  adding  an  i  to  the 
£  and  so  keeping  up  the  time  of  a  f.  The  reader  must 
therefore  not  mistake  this  illustration  for  a  mere  for- 
mality, but  must  look  upon  it  as  an  exact  reproduction, 
in  visible  notes,  of  the  actual  behavior  of  the  voice 
guided  by  a  rhythmic  instinct  which  always  arranges 
the  constituent  sounds  and  silences  in  each  bar  so 
that  their  individual  time-values,  when  added,  will  fill 
out  exactly  the  typical  time-value  of  the  bar.  In  the 
case  just  cited  the  "typical  time-value"  of  each  bar 
is  three  j*'s:  and  we  have  just  seen  how,  instead  of 
arranging  the  constituent  sounds  and  silences  of  the 

first  bar  (for  instance)  as       I     ^      in   the  manner  of  a 

Break 

person  with  a  chanting  habit  of  utterance,  a  reader  of 
short,  sharp,  and  decisive  habit  of  utterance  would 


arrange  the  sounds  and  silences  as 


i    i 


Break 


,  the  bar, 


in  either  case,  amounting  to  three  f  's  in  time,  and 
thus  preserving  its  relation  as  bar  to  every  other  bar  in 
the  poem. 


Compensatory  Silences.  109 

The  instance  given  is  of  the  simplest  form.  Another 
from  the  same  scheme  will  illustrate  the  principle  in  a 
different  shape.  In  the  I3th  bar  of  the  scheme  of 
"Break,  break,  break"  the  sounds  "thoughts  that  a-" 


are  noted  as 


LJL! 


This  notation  is  exact  for 


thoughts  that   a  - 

a  certain  swing  of  utterance  which  is  quite  common  :  but 
another  more  decided  habit  of  utterance  might  make  the 

time-relations  of  these  sounds  thus  v       v       v    : 

thoughts  that        a  - 

still  another,  more  jerky,  habit  might  deliver  them  thus, 
.V     V     :  yet  another,  still  more  jerky,  might 

thoughts  that      a  -        •>  J        J' 


arrange  them  thus, 


:  and  so  on  ;  though 


thoughts    that      a  - 

it  is  easily  seen  that  each  arrangement  rigidly  maintains 
the  time-value  of  the  bar,  the  sum  of  the  time-values  in 
each  case  always  amounting  to  the  time-value  of  three 

The  reader  should  carefully  add  the  time-values  in 
each  of  these  variant  bars,  and  verify  them  as  always 
equalling  three  f  's.  They  show  that  in  arranging  the 
time-relations  of  sounds  to  suit  a  special  habit  of  utter- 
ance the  reader  not  only  uses  silences  to  fill  out  the 
needed  time  of  shortened  sounds — as  in  the  Break, 
break,  break,  bars  —  but  distributes  the  suitable  time  to 
each  of  the  sounds  when  there  is  no  silence  or  rest  in 
the  bar. 

But  this  principle  —  of  arranging  the  primary  rhythm 
of  the  individual  sounds  in  a  bar  at  pleasure  so  long 
as  the  typic  time-value  of  the  bar  is  preserved  —  not 
only  shows  how  the  equality  of  bar  with  bar  is  main- 


no  Science  of  English   Verse. 

tained  in  spite  of  the  widest  differences  in  individual 
utterance,  but  it  affords  us  clear  explanations  of  many 
individual  habits  of  versification  among  poets  which 
have  been  interpreted  in  a  most  confused  and  unsatis- 
factory manner  by  commentators,  through  the  failure  to 
refer  them  to  precisely  parallel  processes  which  are  of 
the  most  commonplace  practical  use  among  musical 
composers.  In  citing  a  few  illustrations  of  this  matter 
— which  will  be  practically  extended  in  another  connec- 
tion, presently  —  it  is  necessary  to  recall  what  was  said 
of  the  function  of  the  rhythmic  accent  above.  When  a 
poet  puts  forth  his  verse  in  print,  he  indicates  the  man- 
ner of  grouping  the  verse-sounds  for  secondary  rhythm 
by  arranging  words  whose  accent  is  known  in  such  a 
manner  that  the  ordinary  pronunciation-accent  falls 
where  the  rhythmic  accent  is  intended  to  fall.  For 
example  if  the  poet  wishes  the  rhythmic  accent  to  fall 
upon  the  first  sound,  and  upon  every  third  sound  after, 
so  as  to  group  the  whole  series  into  threes  —  that  is, 
into  bars  of  three  sounds  each  —  he  may  indicate  such  a 
grouping  by  beginning  with  a  couple  of  three-syllabled 
words  whose  pronunciation-accent  falls  on  the  first  syl- 
lable, thus  initiating  the  type  of  the  rhythm  which  the 
reader  is  intended  to  carry  on  through  the  poem  :  as, 
for  example, 


Wistfully 

I       2    3 

Sought  for  the 

I            2         3 

wandering 

I       2     3 

land  of  the 

<5ver  the 

I    2        3 

blessed. 

waters,  she 

I       2          3 

where  the  pronunciation-accent  on  the  first  syllable  of 
"wandering,"  recurring  at  the  third  sound  after  its  first 
appearance  on  the  sound  "Wist-"  of  "Wistfully," 
initiates  the  type  of  the  rhythm,  advising  the  reader 


Distribution  of  Time-  Values.  1 1 1 

that  the  whole  series  is  to  be  grouped  into  bars  of  three 
sounds  each,  by  placing  a  rhythmic  accent  on  the  first 
sound  and  on  every  third  sound  after. 

With  so  much  of  explanation  as  to  the  function  of 
the  rhythmic  accent  and  the  poet's  means  of  indicating 
its  places  in  the  sound-series,  we  are  now  prepared  to 
see  that  just  as  different  reciters  of  verse  can  deliver 
the  individual  sounds  in  any  bar  with  different  time- 
relations  so  long  as  the  normal  time-value  of  the  bar 
is  not  disturbed,  so  the  poet,  after  having  clearly  indi- 
cated (as  in  the  last  illustration)  this  normal  time-value 
of  each  bar,  may  then  go  on  to  vary  the  individual 
time-values  of  the  constituent  sounds  in  any  given  bar 
at  pleasure.  It  will  contribute  greatly  to  the  reader's 
full  appreciation  of  what  follows  in  this  connection  to 
recall  the  absolute  liberty  with  which  this  is  done  in 
music.  In  a  given  passage,  it  is  the  exception  if  any 
two  bars  present  exactly  the  same  distribution  of  time- 
values  among  their  constituent  sounds,  though  the  sum 
of  the  time-values  in  any  bar  is  always  exactly  equal  to 
the  sum  of  the  time-values  in  any  other  bar  of  that 
strain,  —  unless  of  course  the  normal  time-value  is  an- 
nounced as  changed.  When  the  poet  selects  the  two 

words 

Wistfully      |      wandering      | 

to  begin  his  verse,  he  does  exactly  what  the  musician 
does  in  writing  the  figures  §  at  the  beginning  of  his 

strain,  thus  (fo^  :  both  announce  to  the  reader  (of  the 

poem  or  of  the  music)  that  the  normal  time-value  of 
each  bar  in  that  strain  (of  music  or  of  verse)  is  to  be 


112 


Science  of  English   Verse. 


three  eighth-notes,  with  the  first  of  each  three  accented. 
The  poet  makes  this  announcement  by  presenting  two 

words 

wist-ful-ly  wand-er-ing 


i     2  3 


2    3 


each  of  which  contains  three  sounds  whose  relative 
time-value  is  that  of  three  f  's,  and  whose  ordinary  pro- 
nunciation requires  an  accent  on  the  first  sound  of 

each.     The   musician    makes    the  same  announcement 

o 
by  the  figures  g,  the  3  meaning  always  the  number,  and 

the  8  the  time-value,  of  the  notes  in  each  bar,  and  the 
universal  rule  being  in  music  to  accent  the  first  note  of 
each  bar  unless  otherwise  marked.  But,  as  just  said, 
the  musician  having  made  this  initial  announcement  of 
the  normal  time-value  and  accentuation  of  each  bar, 
considers  himself  at  absolute  freedom  to  put  as  many 
or  as  few  tones  into  any  bar  as  he  likes,  so  long  as 
he  distributes  the  time-values  of  those  tones  in  such  a 
manner  that  their  sum  amounts  to  the  normal  time- 
value  set  for  each  bar.  For  example,  the  melody  of  the 
opening  phrase  in  Beethoven's  Eighth  Symphony  is  as 
follows  : 


and  noting  the  rhythm  of  this  strain  without  reference 
to  the  changes  of  pitch  —  by  placing  all  the  notes  on 
one  line  —  we  have 

3 

4 


rlr-.cc 


r 


c  c  c  c  c  c 

where  each  bar  is  different  in  the  number  of  notes  and 
in  the  distribution  of  their  time-values  from  each  other 


The  "Longs"  and  "-Shorts"  insufficient.   113 

bar,  and  yet  exactly  equal  to  each  other  bar  in  normal 

o 
time-value,  each  containing  the  equivalent  of  V  or  three 

quarter-notes.  And  this  is  a  simple  instance  :  numbers 
of  musical  compositions  will  present  bars  of  greatly 
wider  divergence  in  internal  constitution  than  the 
above. 

This  being  so,  it  would  seem  wonderful  that  precisely 
similar  procedures  by  poets  had  occasioned  such  per- 
plexity and  confused  discussion  among  commentators, 
if  one  did  not  remember  that  the  received  classic  proso- 
dy had  introduced  a  fundamentally  erroneous  notion 
into  English  conceptions  of  verse  which  must  have 
made  such  procedures  seem  contrary  to  all  rule.  The 
classic  prosody  acknowledged  but  two  possible  time- 
values  as  among  its  verse-sounds,  —  the  long  and  the 
short,  of  which  the  former  was  to  the  latter  as  two  to 
one.  It  was  necessary  therefore  to  construct  all  classic 
rhythmic  schemes  out  of  two  elements  only :  the  long 
and  the  short,  represented  by  the  signs  "-"  and  "~." 
It  is  easy  to  see  that  this  limited  number  of  time-values 
admitted  but  slight  range  of  variation  in  the  distribu- 
tion of  them  among  the  tones  of  each  bar :  and  in  point 
of  fact  the  classic  dactyl,  for  example,  —  which  in  our 
notation  is  f  £  £  |,  i.e.,  a  long  and  two  shorts 
-  ^  ~,  —  admitted  only  one  other  distribution  of  time- 
values,  namely  the  spondee,  or  f  f  (two  longs ), 

after  being  once  announced  as  the  normal  time-value 
of  each  bar  in  hexameter  verse. 

But  in  English  sounds  many  time-values  besides  the 
short  and  the  long  exist :  as  indicated  by  the  notation 
above  given,  which  includes  the  relation  of  the  whole- 
note  <»  to  all  the  others,  f*,  f,  f,  £,  besides  the  rela- 


ii4  Science  of  English   Verse. 

tions  of  these  to  each  other,  and  the  relations  implied 
in  such  rhythmical  forms  as  •  2  •  and  f'j*  I*.  It 

is  perfectly  evident  that  these  numerous  time-values 
could  not  be  interpreted  upon  any  theory  of  the  short 
and  the  long  as  exhausting  all  the  capabilities  of  verse- 
sounds  ;  and  the  effort  to  do  so  resulted  in  the  confused 
interpretations  before  mentioned. 

In  the  light  of  musical  procedure,  then,  let  us  now 
proceed  to  interpret  some  examples  of  the  liberty  which 
Shakspere,  with  evident  eagerness,  avails  himself  of 
to  vary  the  long  stretches  of  iambic  rhythm  in  blank 
verse  throughout  his  plays  by  variously  distributing 
the  time-values  within  the  bars.  Without  taking  the 
trouble  to  repeat  simple  instances  of  such  varying, 
which  must  be  clear  to  the  reader  from  the  examples 
already  given,  let  us  take  a  more  complex  instance,  such 
as  line  173  in  Act  II,  Scene  4,  of  Measure  for  Measure. 
Throughout  the  verse  of  this  play,  as  in  all  English 
blank  verse,  the  normal  time-value  of  each  bar  is  three 
f  's,  and  the  typic  form  of  bar  (see  explanation  of  Typic 
Forms  in  the  next  chapter,  on  Secondary  Rhythm)  is 


C   f 


,  which  exactly  corresponds  in  time-relations  to 


the  classic  iambus  (a  short  before  a  long)  and  may  well 
enough  be  called  the  Iambic  Form.  The  typic  metre,  or 
line-group,  in  blank  verse  contains  five  of  these  iambic 
bars ;  so  that  the  following  is  a  scheme  of  the  type  of 
each  blank  verse  line  : 


1234 


A 


A 


•\ 


5 


c  r    t  r    p  r    c  r 

in  which,  —  let   it   be   carefully  noticed,  —  the   accent 


Line  in  Measure  for  Measure.  115 

does  not  fall  on  the  first  note  in  each  bar  but  on  the 
second,  and  therefore  requires  to  be  specially  marked 
by  the  sign  A.  At  the  line  now  to  be  interpreted  Isa- 
bella says : 

To  whom  should  I  complain  ?     Did  I  tell  this, 
Who  would  believe  me  ?     O  perilous  mouths  ! 

Compare  the  first  line  with  the  type,  and  then  the  sec- 
ond, which  is  the  one  to  which  special  attention  is 
called  as  presenting  a  very  wide  and  yet  thoroughly 
musical  variation. 


Type 

i 

A 

t  r 

2 

A 

:  r 

3 

A 

t  r 

4 

A 

t  r 

S 

A 

t  r 

Line 

Words 

t  r 

To  whom 

t  r 

should  I 

t  r 

corn-plain 

••  t  t 

?      Did    I 

r  t 

tell  this 

Here  we  find  the  actual  movement  of  the  voice  in  read- 
ing the  line  to  coincide  with  the  rhythmic  movement  in 
the  type  until  we  get  to  the  fourth  bar,  where  an  adroit 
arrangement  of  the  words  so  as  to  suggest  a  rest  for 
the  interrogative  pause,  and  an  indignant  stress  on 

"  Did,"  combine  to  vary  the  distribution  •    •  into  the 

distribution  i    •    0  which    is  equivalent   to  it    in    the 

v    i/ 
sum  of  the  time-values,  each  being  equal  to  three  T's,  or 

Q 

"  y."  But  the  next  line  shows  a  much  greater  diver- 
gence from  the  type.  The  place  of  the  accent  is 
changed  in  the  first  bar,  and  the  time-values  of  several 
notes  are  relatively  re-arranged ;  yet  the  time-value  of 
each  bar  is  maintained  and  the  music  of  the  line  runs 
into  that  of  the  next  with  the  suavest  connection. 
Writing  its  notation  under  that  of  the  type,  we  have : 


u6 


Science  of  English   Verse. 


I 

2 

3 

4 

5 

A 

A 

A 

A 

A 

Type. 

c  r 

c  r 

c  r 

C  f 

•  r 

A 

A 

A 

A 

Line. 

r  r 

j  r 

c  * 

C  f  C 

c  r 

Words. 

Who  would 

be-lieve 

me? 

O     per  -  il  - 

ous  mouths! 

In  the  first  bar  a  process  exactly  reversing  that  hitherto 
described  for  the  triole  is    used  with  singular  effect. 


A  triole 


',  for  example,  indicates  that  the  three 


notes  \  |  are  to  be  played  in  the  time  of  two  £'s  ; 
but  we  may  reverse  this  and  indicate  that  two  f's 
are  to  occupy  the  time  of  three  f's.  This  is  what 
Shakspere  has  done  in  the  bar  now  under  review. 
The  normal  time-value  of  each  of  these  bars  is,  as 

marked  at  the  beginning,  3,  or  three  f's  :  but,  wishing 

o  * 

a  certain  measured  and  wondering  strangeness  of  stress 

at  the  beginning  of  this  line,  Shakspere  has  used 
words  which  suggest  it  by  suggesting  a  change  of 
accent  from  the  second  to  the  first  note  and  a  re- 
distribution of  rhythmic  times  from  three  notes  to  two 
which  occupy  the  same  time.  The  third  and  fourth 
bars  also  present  adroit  redistributions.  That  in  the 
third  bar  may  be  particularly  noticed.  Just  after  the 
question  "  Who  would  believe  me  ? "  comes  the  rest  at 
the  place  of  the  typical  accented  note.  Nothing  could 
be  more  effective  than  this  intensified  rest,  which 
amounts  to  an  accentuation  of  the  silence  after  the 
question  and  of  the  hopelessness  that  fills  it. 

It  is  by  the  constant  use  of  such  redistributions  that 
Shakspere  has  brought  such  marvellous  and  subtle 
music  out  of  the  bare  type  of  blank  verse.  As  he 
grew  older  and  got  his  art  more  in  hand  he  used  these 


Summary  of  First-Order  RJiythm.        117 

variations  more  and  more  liberally,  just  as  he  used  the 
run-on  lines  with  increasing  plentifulness.  The  run- 
on  lines,  indeed,  are  merely  an  extension,  into  the  prov- 
ince of  metre  or  fourth-order  rhythm,  of  the  primary 
rhythmic  variations  just  now  described. 

From  what  has  appeared  in  the  present  chapter  and 
the  previous  sections  relating  to  the  same  subject,  the 
following  principles  should  have  clearly  emerged. 

(1)  Primary   rhythm    is   the   result    of   simple   time- 
relations  between  individual  verse-sounds. 

(2)  The  English  habit  of  utterance  in  current  speech 
is  to  deliver  the  sounds  in  some  sort  of  primary  rhythm. 

(3)  The  particular  sort  of  primary  rhythm  thus  given 
varies   with   different   speakers,  but   only  within  such 
limits  as  allow  every  speaker  to  preserve  without  diffi- 
culty the  larger  time-relations  of  bar  to  bar  in  secon- 
dary rhythm. 

(4)  In  consequence  of  the  habit   mentioned,  words 
have   become  so  associated  with  their  rhythms  as  to 
suggest   them   when  written    or   printed   and   thus   to 
become  a  system  of  notation  for  rhythm. 

(5)  But  this  system   is  equivocal   to   the   extent   of 
being   liable   to   different   interpretations  according  to 
different  habits  of  utterance;  and  the  musical  system, 
which  is  adequate  to  the  minutest  variations  and  precise 
in  their  expression,  is  therefore  valuable  in  verse. 

(6)  As  varying  habits  of  utterance  change  the  rela- 
tive time-values  of  verse-sounds  within  a  bar  without 
changing   the   absolute   value   of   the   bar,-  so  varying 
habits  of  versification   among   poets   result   in  similar 
internal  distributions  within  the  bar. 

(7)  These  habits  are  purely  musical  and  are  to  be 
interpreted  in  the  light  of  the  corresponding  processes 
in  music. 


n8  Science  of  English   Verse. 


CHAPTER    IV. 

OF  SECONDARY  RHYTHM  :  ITS  NATURE  AND  TYPES. 

THE  following  chapter  will  treat :  (i)  of  the  func- 
tion of  the  rhythmic  accent  in  grouping  individual 
verse-sounds  into  bars  which  constitute  a  second  order 
of  rhythmic  units  for  the  measurement  of  secondary 
rhythm ; 

(2)  of  the  principle  that  this  grouping  is  practically 
always    a   grouping   either  into    threes    or  into    fours, 
which  originates  two  great  classes  of  rhythm,  namely, 
3-rhythm  and  4-rhythm  ; 

(3)  of  the  three   forms  in  which   3-rhythm  appears 
and  the  two  forms  in  which  4-rhythm  appears,  as  con- 
stituting together  five  main  types  of  rhythm  to  which  all 
the  varieties  of  English  rhythms  are  clearly  referable  ; 

(4)  of  the  manner  in  which  2-rhythm  and  5-rhythm 
and  other  such  types  are  really  included,  in  their  only 
practicable  forms,  in  the  two  types  given,  so  that  the 
list,    3-rhythm    and  4-rhythm,   is    exhaustive   as    to   all 
rhythmic  phenomena  in  English  verse ; 

(5)  of  a  complete  view  of  the  possible  variations  of 
3-rhythm  and  4-rhythm  according  as  the  rhythmic  ac- 
cent is  placed  on  the  first,  the  second,  or  other,  unit  of 
each  bar ; 

(6)  of  a  complete  view  of  the  possible  variations  of 
3-rhythm    and   4-rhythm    according    as   the   time-value 
of  each  bar  is  distributed  among  different  numbers  of 
sounds. 


Secondary  Rhythm.  119 

As  matter  of  fact,  established  by  observation,  the  ear 
seems  to  find  more  and  more  pleasure  in  any  series  of 
sounds  presented  to  it  according  as  it  can  make  more 
and  more  varieties  of  exact  co-ordinations  of  those 
sounds.  We  have  already  found  that  the  ear  makes 
three  very  widely-differing  classes  of  co-ordinations  in 
listening  to  sounds,  namely,  those  which  result  in 
rhythm,  those  which  result  in  tune,  and  those  which 
result  in  tone-color;  and  it  will  help  us  to  appreciate 
the  ear's  desire  for  great  numbers  of  these  co-ordina- 
tions if  we  recall  at  this  point  that  the  six  species  of 
co-ordination  we  are  now  studying  are  all  pleasure- 
giving  variations  of  only  the  first-named  genus  of  co-ordi- 
nations —  rhythm. 

The  last  chapter  discussed  the  co-ordinations  of  indi- 
vidual sound  with  sound  which  result  in  the  perception 
of  what  we  have  agreed  to  call  primary  rhythm  :  the 
present  chapter,  advancing  a  step,  is  to  discuss  those 
next-larger  co-ordinations  of  group-of-sounds  with  group- 
of-sounds  which  result  in  the  perception  of  what  we 
have  agreed  to  call  secondary  rhythm. 

In  listening  to  a  poem  the  ear  is  enabled  to  make 
these  co-ordinations  by  hearing  a  rhythmic  accent  recur 
at  a  given  interval  of  time.  This  rhythmic  accent 
marks  off  given  periods  of  time  for  the  ear :  and  the 
ear's  power  of  exactly  co-ordinating  the  duration  of 
sounds  enables  it  to  say,  as  each  group  passes  in  review 
before  it,  whether  all  the  sounds  of  each  group  (bar) 
fulfil  in  duration  the  given  period  of  time  which  is  the 
normal  duration  or  typic  time-value  of  each  group.  To 
these  sequent  summings-up  and  comparisons  of  particu- 
lars of  time  the  ear  attaches  a  peculiar  delight,  which  is 
traced  in  some  form  over  all  the  human  race.  Such 


I2O 


Science  oj  English   Verse. 


summings-up  into  bars  are  all  made  by  means  of  ac- 
cent. 

But  mention  has  already  been  made,  in  various  con- 
nections and  with  only  partial  explanations,  of  three 
kinds  of  accent,  to  wit :  rhythmic  accent,  pronunciation 
accent,  and  logical  accent.  It  is  now  necessary  to  dis- 
criminate these  with  precision.  This  may  be  done  by 
inquiring  what  are  their  common  incidents  by  virtue  of 
which  they  are  all  named  "  accent,"  and  then  what  are 
their  peculiar  incidents  by  virtue  of  which  they  are 
distinguished  into  the  three  kinds,  rhythmic  accent, 
pronunciation  accent,  and  logical  accent. 

Their  common  function  is :  to  call  the  ear's  attention 
to  particular  sounds  in  a  series. 

Their  special  functions  are  : 


To  call  the  ear's  attention  to  par- 
ticular sounds  in  a  series  of  verse- 
sounds  or  music-sounds,  for  the 
purpose  of  marking  the  intervals 
of  time  allotted  to  each  bar,  such 
interval  being  always  that  which 
elapses  between  any  two  sounds 
thus  distinguished  by  the  . 

To  call  the  ear's  attention  to  particu- 
lar sounds  in  a  series  of  syllabic 
sounds  constituting  an  English 
word,  for  the  purpose  of  empha- 
sizing the  special  dignity,  above 
other  sounds  in  that  word,  of  the 
root-sound  (generally)  thus  distin- 
guished by  the  .... 

To  call  the  ear's  attention  to  par- 
ticular words  in  a  series  of  English 
words  constituting  a  sentence,  for 
the  purpose  of  emphasizing  the 


RHYTHMIC  ACCENT; 


PRONUNCIATION  ACCENT  ; 


Physics  of  Accent.  121 

logical  importance,  above  other 
words  in  that  sentence,  of  the 
word  whose  main  sound  is  thus 
distinguished  by  the  ...  LOGICAL  ACCENT. 

These  discriminations  are  based  upon  varieties  of 
functional  purpose.  If  we  now  consider  the  three  sorts 
of  accent  as  phenomena  of  sound,  we  can  further  dis- 
criminate them  by  their  respective  physical  explana- 
tions. 

The  rhythmic  accent  in  universal  use  for  marking- 
off  the  bars  of  music  and  of  English  verse  is  a  slight 
increase  of  intensity.  The  physical  explanation  of  in- 
tensity refers  it  (see  Chapter  I.)  to  the  excursion  of  the 
vibrating-body,  which  is  wider  according  to  the  force  of 
the  vibratory  impulse.  The  width  of  the  excursion  thus 
becomes  the  measure  of  the  force :  and  such  measure, 
when  perceived  by  the  ear,  is  what  we  call  intensity. 
This  process  —  of  signalizing  each  bar  by  a  slightly 
more  forcible  production  of  one  of  its  sounds  —  is  in- 
variable in  music  and  in  English  verse.  The  whole 
system  of  secondary  rhythm  in  both  arts  turns  upon 
the  timed  recurrence  of  the  slight  increase  in  intensity, 
or  rhythmic  accent. 

But  the  pronunciation  accent  often  differs  physically 
from  the  rhythmic  accent  in  consisting  not  only  of  this 
slightly  wider  excursion  which  produces  the  increase  of 
intensity,  but  also  of  a  slightly  faster  rate  of  vibration 
which  gives  rise  to  the  perception  of  a  heightened  pitch 
in  the  sound.  This  heightening  of  pitch  is  easily  veri- 
fied by  experiment.  If  the  conduct  of  a  reader's  voice 
who  is  not  aware  of  the  experiment  be  narrowly  watched, 
it  will  be  observed  that  in  general  the  emphatic  syllable 
—  as  for  example  the  first  in  "rhythmic,"  the  second  in 


122  Science  of  English    Verse. 

"compare,"  the  third  in  "referee"  —  is  given  with  a 
slightly  increased  intensity  and  with  a  slightly  sharp- 
ened pitch.  But  the  sharpening  is  not  inevitable,  often 
yielding  to  those  more  important  variations  of  pitch 
which  constitute  the  tunes  of  speech  and  which  may 
frequently  require  a  lowering  of  voice  in  the  accented 
syllable.  The  experiment  for  testing  the  sharpened 
pitch  in  the  pronunciation  accent  is  conditioned  upon 
the  reader's  not  being  aware  of  it,  because  the  thou- 
sand-fold habit  of  speech  has  made  its  processes  so 
unconscious  that  when  they  become  conscious  they  are 
almost  sure  to  become  unnatural. 

Such  being  the  physical  constitution  of  the  rhythmic 
accent  and  the  pronunciation  accent :  when  we  come  to 
investigate  the  logical  accent  it  is  found  not  to  coincide 
precisely  with  either  in  its  nature.  Although  the  logi- 
cal accent  is,  in  general,  an  exaggeration  of  the  pronun- 
ciation accent  as  just  described  —  that  is,  although  the 
logical  accent  in  the  majority  of  cases  is  a  greater 
increase  of  intensity  and  a  higher  sharpening  of  pitch 
than  the  pronunciation  accent  —  sometimes  it  is  a  low- 
ering or  flattening  of  pitch  combined  with  the  increase 
in  intensity.  Its  general  nature  —  as  a  combination  of 
increased  intensity  and  heightened  pitch  greater  than 
that  of  the  pronunciation  accent  —  may  be  well  illus- 
trated by  an  example  in  which  a  logical  antithesis  is  set 
up  between  two  pronunciation  accents.  For  example, 
let  the  reader  utter  the  following  sentence  aloud : 

"  In  English,  we  do  not  say  '  rhythw/f,'  we  say  'rhythmic?  " 

Here  a  logical  antithesis  is  set  up  between  the  first 
pronunciation  and  the  second  :  and  consequently  the 
logical  accent,  which  is  used  to  call  the  attention  of 


Logical  Accent.  123 

the  ear  to  antithetic  words,  here  falls  upon  the  same 
sounds  with  the  pronunciation  accent  The  result  is 
a  very  clear  and  pronounced  combination  of  increased 
intensity  and  sharpened  pitch.  But,  particularly  where 
the  expression  is  of  wonder  or  contempt,  the  logical 
accent  often  yields  its  heightening  of  pitch  in  favor  of 
a  tune  of  speech  which  requires  a  lowering  of  pitch. 
For  example,  in  the  following  question  the  sound 
"  worn- "  is  lower  in  pitch  than  the  others : 

"  Would  you  strike  an  unprotected  woman  ?  " 

as  may  be  more  clearly  perceived  by  noticing  the  rela- 
tively sharp  pitch  of  the  antithetic  "  woman  "  in  utter- 
ing aloud  the  merely  interrogative  question, 
"  Was  it  a  woman,  or  a  man  ?  " 

In  point  of  fact,  the  pronunciation  accent  is  simply 
the  logical  accent  on  a  smaller  scale,  —  having  its  origin 
in  the  logical  pre-eminence  of  the  root-syllable  over  the 
other  syllables  in  a  word.  Hence  the  description  of 
the  logical  accent  as  a  physical  exaggeration  of  the  pro- 
nunciation accent  agrees  with  its  nature ;  and  it  is  also 
easily  seen  that  the  logical  accent  in  practice  partly 
falls  on  the  same  sound  with  the  pronunciation  accent, 
embracing  in  its  scope  the  whole  word  instead  of  a 
single  syllable. 

In  fine  :  let  the  reader  always  think  of 

The  rhythmic  accent  as  concerning  the  bar,  or  secondary  rhythm  ; 

The  pronunciation  accent  as  concerning,  primarily,  at  least,  the 
root-syllable  of  a  word ; 

The  logical  accent  as  concerning  the  prominent  words  of  a  sen- 
tence. • 

These  accents  have  been  dwelt  upon  with  care  for 
the  reason  that  grave  errors  have  arisen  in  modern 


124  Science  of  English   Verse. 

criticism  through  the  confusion  of  their  natures  and 
functions.  Such  errors  will  be  pointed  out  in  the  dis- 
cussion of  those  types  of  rhythm,  particularly  that  of 
blank  verse,  which  they  have  specially  concerned. 

It  is  worth  while  observing  finally  that  the  variations 
of  pitch  which  distinguish  two  of  these  accents  are 
really  primordial  forms  of  the  tunes  of  speech  discussed 
in  Part  III. ;  and  when  it  was  remarked  that  their  pitch- 
variations  sometimes  yield  to  those  of  the  more  highly- 
developed  tunes,  this  was  only  another  method  of  say- 
ing that  the  tune  of  speech  changed  from  a  higher  tone 
to  a  lower  one  for  some  special  meaning. 

Having  thus  discriminated  the  rhythmic  accent :  we 
are  now  to  trace  its  function  in  marking-off  bars  of 
secondary  rhythm  for  the  ear. 

It  was  above  explained  that  the  musician  begins  his 
notation  of  ideas  by  placing  at  the  head  certain  figures 
which  establish  the  normal  time-value  of  each  bar : 

as  4,"  which  advertises  the  reader  that  each  bar  is  to 
contain  a  time-value  equivalent  to  3  quarter-notes  :  or 
as  "  x,"  which  advertises  the  reader  that  each  bar  will 

contain  a  time-value  equivalent  to  3  eighth-notes.  It 
was  then  explained  that  the  poet  accomplishes  the  same 
purpose  of  advertising  the  reader  of  the  time-value 
intended  for  each  of  his  bars  by  initiating  the  rhythm 
with  words  which  unequivocally  suggest  the  bar.  As, 
for  example,  a  poem  beginning  with 

Wistfully   |   wandering   | 

substantially  informs  t"he  reader  that  each  bar  is  to  have 
the  time-value  and  rhythmic  accent  of  "  wistfully "  or 
of  "wandering"  —  that  is,  a  time-value  of  3  eighth- 


Initiation  of  Rhythm.  125 

notes  and  a  rhythmic  accent  on  the  first  sound  of  each 
bar. 

Pursuing  the  subject  from  this  point:  it  is  not 
always,  nor  even  usually,  necessary  that  the  rhythm 
should  be  initiated  by  a  single  word,  as  "wistfully" 
in  the  example.  The  same  bar  —  which,  as  consisting 
of  three  equal  units  of  time,  we  may  call  hereafter 
"3-rhythm"  as  contradistinguished  from  the  "4-rhythm" 
presently  developed  —  the  same  bar  of  3-rhythm  may 
be  hinted  by  beginning  with  a  two-sound  word  whose 
accent  is  on  the  first  sound,  following  that  with  one 
unaccented  sound,  and  then  placing  another  accented 
sound  :  as,  for  example,  instead  of  the  words 

Wistfully   |    wandering   |   over  the    |   waters,    | 
the  words 

Wistful  she    |   wandered  a-   |   way  o'er  the    |   waters    | 

would  unequivocally  initiate  the  same  3-rhythm. 

Indeed,  numerous  collocations  of  single  words  are 
pronounced  in  familiar  conversation  with  such  an  ac- 
cent and  primary  rhythm  that  the  poet  may  confidently 
initiate  a  rhythm  with  them.  Thus  Tennyson  has  not 
hesitated  to  put  forth 

Half  a  league,    |   half  a  league    |   half  a  league,    |   onward 

relying  upon  the  ordinary  swing  of  the  words  "  half  a 
league  "  in  current  utterance  to  suggest  to  the  reader 
the  3-rhythm 

§  c  t  t   tit   t  t  t   r    t 

These  three  methods  of  initiating  a  3-rhythm  may  now 
be  placed  under  each  other  for  better  comparison,  with 
numbered  sounds  and  a  typic  scheme : 


126 


Science  of  English   Verse. 


3  r 

8    » 

: 

c 

P 

c  p 

c 

•  c 

r 

c 

Wist- 

ful 

-ly 

wand 

-er  -  ing 

o   - 

ver    the 

wa    - 

ters. 

Wist- 

fill 

she 

wand 

-  ered  a  - 

way 

o'er     the 

wa    - 

ters. 

Half 

a 

league, 

half 

a   league, 

half 

a  league, 

on     - 

ward. 

i 

2 

3 

i 

2         3 

i 

2         3 

[12] 

3 

t  C  t 


t  :  t  t  t  r 


But  suppose  it  should  be  desired  to  initiate  a  type  of 
secondary  rhythm  in  which .  the  bar  consists  of  four 
equal  units  of  time  —  that  is,  a  type  of  4-rhythm,  of 
the  form 

4 

8 

Here,  the  rhythmic  accent  must  recur  on  every  fourth 
sound,  instead  of  on  every  third  sound  as  in  3-rhythm. 
The  typic  bar  may  therefore  be  conveyed  to  the  reader 
as  follows  : 

Wistfully  she  wandered  o'er  the  desert  of  the  waters, 
where  the  rhythm  is  clearly  seen  to  be 
4-  •*••»»•*.»«•     »     •       f 

R^^^^^^^^^V^r 

Wist-f  ul  -  ly     she    wandered  o'er  the    des  -  ert     of      the  wa  -  ters. 
i        2       3.      4       i       2       3       4       i        2      3        4     [i  2]  [34] 

To  these  examples  of  the  method  of  initiating  given 
rhythms  it  is  perhaps  necessary  to  add  nothing  more 
than  the  caution  that  opening  bars  consisting  of  single 
words  are  often  capable  of  more  than  one  rhythmic 
interpretation,  and  that  such  equivocal  bars  should 
rarely  occur  at  the  beginning  of  a  piece.  When  occur- 
ring in  the  body  of  it,  after  the  type  of  rhythm  has  been 
clearly  given  to  the  reader,  they  occasion  no  trouble  of 
course  because  the  type  gives  the  clue  by  which  the 
reader's  mind  even  unconsciously  rhythmizes  them. 

For  example  :  in  the  old  English  ballad  "  Proud  were 
the  Spencers "  (see  Hale's  and  Furnivall's  edition  of 


Equivocal  Bars  at  Beginning.  127 


Bishop  Percy's  Manuscript)  the  first  two  bars  might  be 
either  3-rhythm, 

t      t      t 


t      I      t 


the 


Spen 


cers, 


and 


Proud         were 

or  4-rhythm  of  the  form 

ft  r       t     t 

and 

and  the  reader  is  unable  to  decide  which  of  these  is 
intended  until  the  last  two  bars  of  the  line  are  reached, 
which  admit  of  no  rhythmic  arrangement  except  that  of 
4-rhythm, 


r 

Spen 


4 

8 


t 


.  f 


con 
2 


tions 
4 


r 

mild. 


All  such  equivocal  beginnings  are  bad.  The  resources 
of  our  language  as  to  rhythm  are  so  copious  that  not 
the  laziest  ballad-maker  need  ever  be  at  a  loss  for  means 
of  indicating  the  intended  movement  of  verse  with 
unmistakable  clearness. 

The  two  great  classes  of  secondary  rhythm  which 
have  been  named  "3-rhythm"  and  "4-rhythm"  com- 
prise, as  types,  all  the  rhythmic  combinations  made 
with  English  words.  When  the  rhythmic  accent  recurs 
at  that  interval  of  time  represented  by  three  units  of 
any  sort  —  no  matter  among  how  many  sounds  this 
amount  of  time  may  be  distributed  —  we  have  the 
effect  upon  the  ear  of  3-rhythm  :  when  the  rhythmic 
accent  recurs  at  that  interval  of  time  represented  by 
four  units  of  any  sort  —  no  matter  among  how  many 
sounds  this  amount  of  time  is  distributed  —  then  the 
effect  on  the  ear  is  that  of  4-rhythm. 


128 


Science  of  English   Verse. 


But  the  expression  above,  "  no  matter  among  how 
many  sounds  this  amount  of  time  is  distributed,"  refers 
only  to  the  general  effect  upon  the  ear  as  3-rhythm  or 
4-rhythm  ;  and,  in  practice,  certain  favorite  methods  of 
distributing  the  given  time  of  each  bar  have  specialized 
three  very  strongly-marked  forms  of  3-rhythm,  and  two 
very  strongly-marked  forms  of  4-rhythm,  in  English 
poetry. 

These  forms  are  as  follows.  3-rhythm  occurs  under 
the  typic  form  (i) 


t   t   t    t   t   t    t   t 


r    c 


of  which  Tennyson's  Charge  of  the  Light  Brigade  is  a 
modern  example  (though,  as  we  shall  presently  find,  this 
is  the  earliest  type  of  rhythm  in  our  language) 


Half 


t   t 

a  league, 


half 


t    t 

a  league, 


half      a  league, 


C 

ward. 


or  under  the  form  (2) 

1  r    c     re     re     re 

in  which  the  time-value  of  the  3  eighth-notes  *  £  * 
is  distributed  among  two  sounds  by  making  the  first 
sound  in  the  bar  a  quarter-note,  equivalent  in  value  to 
the  2  first  eighth-notes  of  the  bar:  this  form  finding  a 
modern  illustration  in  Poe's  Raven, 


r 


3  r     r 

8    I         * 

Once        up 

or  under  the  form  (3) 


r    t 

mid  -    night 


r 

drear 


C 

y? 


den    med 


t  r 

i    -    ta 


;  r 

tion,    fan 


: 

A 

r 

cy 

free 

Typic  Forms  of  4-  Rhythm.  129 

where  the  form  (2)  is  exactly  reversed,  the  two  last 
eighth-notes  in  each  bar  coalescing  into  one  sound  of 
a  quarter-note's  length,  and  the  rhythmic  accent  recur- 
ring on  the  second  time-unit  in  each  bar  instead  of  on 
the  first.  In  the  separate  discussion  of  these  forms 
which  is  presently  to  follow,  another  method  of  noting 
the  present  one  will  be  presented  and  their  respective 
merits  set  forth. 

4-rhythm  occurs  under  the  typic  form  (i) 


(The)  rose  was  new    in 


bios-  som  and  the 


sun  was    on    the 


r 


hill. 


or  under  the  form  (2) 


r   t  t   r   r    r 


gude  -  man     and 


hame     came 


he. 


These  five  forms,  or  sub-types,  of  the  two  main  types 
afford  us  five  natural  and  convenient  divisions  for  the 
special  study  of  secondary  rhythm  as  it  appears  in  Eng- 
lish verse.  This  special  discussion  is  begun  in  the  next 
chapter,  with  the  consideration  of  the  remarkable  cir- 
cumstance that  every  long  poem,  and  nearly  every  short 
one,  in  the  English  language  since  the  beginning  of  our 
poetic  history  in  the  seventh  century  has  been  written 
in  3-rhythm. 

But  before  advancing  to  that  division  it  seems  proper 
to  end  this  general  view  of  3-rhythm  and  4-rhythm  by 
answering  the  very  natural  question  which  will  arise  in 
the  student's  mind  as  to  why  there  should  not  be  other 
classes  of  secondary  rhythm  besides  the  3-class  and 
the  4-class  —  why,  for  instance,  we  should  not  have  2- 
rhythm  and  5-rhythm,  and  so  on. 

Considering   first   the  question  as   to  2-rhythm :   its 


130  Science  of  English   Verse. 

answer  is  that  4-rhythm  (which  we  have)  is  substantially 
2-rhythm  in  the  only  form  in  which  it  would  be  tolerable 
to  the  ear.  This  may  easily  be  seen  if  we  consider 
what  2-rhythm  would  be  in  its  typic  form  if  rigidly 
maintained.  The  scheme  of  such  a  type  is  — 

i  t    t    :    t    :    :    t    t  . 

and  so  forth.  But  the  quick  recurrence  of  the  same  ac- 
cent on  every  alternate  sound,  without  any  relief  through 
the  variation  in  time-distribution  among  the  sounds  — 
which  variation  the  shortness  of  the  bar  renders  neces- 
sarily limited  —  would  be  a  monotonous  iteration  not 
pleasant  to  the  modern  English  ear. 

It  would  seem  that  such  a  rhythmus  existed  among 
the  Greeks.  The  grammarians  describe  a  foot  of  theirs 
called  the  Pyrrhic  which  was  "two  short,"  or  "w^;" 
and  such  a  foot  would  be  precisely  one  bar,  f  f ,  of  the 
2-rhythm  now  in  hand.  It  might  be  an  interesting 
point  —  how  the  Greek  declaimer  of  such  a  series  of 
sounds  could  mark-off  the  feet  to  the  ear  of  his  audi- 
ence without  a  rhythmic  accent.  In  a  succession  of 
Pyrrhics  there  would  be  no  recurrent  difference  of  dura- 
tion to  mark  off  groups  ;  a  recurrent  change  of  pitch  in 
the  voice,  at  such  short  intervals,  would  be  intolerable ; 
and  a  recurrent  tone-color,  at  the  same  intervals,  would 
be  not  only  intolerable,  but  well-nigh  impossible.  If, 
therefore,  all  the  resources  of  duration,  of  pitch,  and 
of  tone-color  be  thus  out  of  his  power :  if,  as  many 
assert,  the  signs  v  and  '  and  -  called  "accents"  in 
Greek  were  intensity-accents ;  and  if,  as  is  evident  on 
the  least  inspection,  these  accents  do  not  coincide  with 
the  rhythmic  accent  but  fall  at  such  intervals  as  would 
utterly  destroy  all  possible  groupings  by  means  of  the 


2- Rhythm.  131 

rhythmic  accent :  it  would  seem  that  we  must  be  driven 
to  one  of  two  conclusions,  either  that  the  Greeks  did 

use  the  rhythmic  accent   just  as  we  do  for  secondary 

o 
rhythm,  or  that  the  Pyrrhic  was  in  Greek  —  as  the  y 

bar  f  f  is  in  English  — a  merely  theoretical  measure. 

Among  several  acute  remarks  which  peer  through 
the  mass  of  error  in  Poe's  Rationale  of  Verse  is  one 
which  ridicules  the  idea  that  any  such  measure  as  the 
Pyrrhic  exists  in  English  poetry. 

The  remark  as  to  the  monotony  of  the  recurrence  of 
a  similar  rhythmic  accent  at  an  interval  so  short  as  f  f 
will  have  prepared  the  reader  to  see  that  the  form  of 
4-rhythm  herein  adopted  substantially  saves  to  us  all 
the  swing  of  2-rhythm  without  this  disadvantage.  In 
4-rhythm,  in  fact,  many  bars  occur  in  the  form  If  M 
(equivalent  of  course  to  I  f  f  f  f  I)  which  is 
2-rhythm  founded  upon  the  longer  unit  f  instead  of 
the  unit  f;  while  in  4-rhythm  bars  of  the  form 
I  there  is,  in  practice,  a  slight  accent 

placed  on  the  third  note  —  an  accent  well  known  in 
music  as  the  "  secondary  "  or  subsidiary  accent,  occur- 
ring always  on  the  third  time-unit  of  bars  which  involve 
four  time-units. 

In  accordance  with  these  considerations  we  find  in 
music  the  very  common  rhythmus  4  —  which  is  the 

A 

same  as  our  ^,  or  4-rhythm,  in  verse, — but  so  far  as  I 
am  aware  no  piece  of  music  has  been  written  in  the 
rhythmus§,or  |  £  £  |- 

Accepting  these  as  sufficient  grounds  for  the  absence 
of  2-rhythm  from  our  list  of  secondary  types :  when  we 


132 


Science  of  English   Verse. 


come  to  consider  the  absence  of  5-rhythm  entirely  dif- 
ferent reasons  present  themselves.  These  are  founded 
on  the  difficulty  which  the  ear  finds  in  co-ordinating 
recurrences  of  the  rhythmic  accent  at  the  interval  of  5 
units.  It  is  not  the  length  of  the  interval,  but  the  odd- 
ness  of  it,  which  seems  to  trouble  the  ear.  5-rhythm 
has  been  occasionally  attempted,  as  an  experiment,  in 
music,  and  Robert  Franz  has  even  written  a  song  in 
7-rhythm.1  Without  here  considering  the  latter,  which 

1  It  is  interesting  to  remark  in  this  connection  that  the  form  of  the 
Japanese  ode  is  framed  upon  the  numbers  five  and  seven,  the  entire  ode 
consisting  of  thirty-one  syllables  which  are  always  distributed  among  five 
lines,  giving  five  syllables  to  the  first  line,  seven  to  the  next,  five  to  the 
next,  and  seven  each  to  the  two  last.  This  arrangement  is  not  theoreti- 
cally rhythmical  among  them,  and  it  is  commonly  supposed  that  the  Jap- 
anese have  no.rhythm  in  their  verse.  On  hearing  several  poems  recited, 
however,  by  Mr.  Mitsukuri  and  Mr.  Kuhara  —  two  highly-intelligent  Jap- 
anese gentlemen  who  are  now  Fellows  of  Johns  Hopkins  University,  and 
who  have  obligingly  favored  me  with  several  readings  for  this  purpose  — 
I  am  strongly  inclined  to  think  the  Japanese  verse  not  only  rhythmical, 
but  rhythmical  according  to  the  forms  and  limitations  just  set  forth  as  to 
English  verse.  Thus  although  the  five-syllabled  and  seven-syllabled  lines 
of  the  Japanese  ode  seem  to  contravene  the  principles  of  2-rhythm  and 
3-rhythm  just  now  asserted,  on  investigation  they  strike  my  ear  as  being 
so  pronounced  in  actual  utterance  as  to  become  genuine  3-rhythm.  For 
example,  the  following  poem  —  in  which  I  have  divided  each  syllable  of  a 
word  from  its  neighbor  by  a  hyphen,  for  clearness'  sake  :  — 

12345 
Yo-no-na-ka-wa 

1234567 
Yu-me-ka  u-tsu-tsu-ka 
U-tsu-tsu-to-mo 
Yu-me-to-mo  shi-ra-dsu 
A-ri-te  na-ke-re-ba 

(the  a  sounded  as  our  ah  and  the  *  as  our  ee)  might  be  noted  crudely 


t 


r    t 


ka 


Yo  -  no   -  na  - 

C    C    I    t 

Yu  -   me  -    ka        u  - 


C    C    f 

tsu  -  tsu  -  ka 


5-  Rhythm. 


133 


is  a  unique  tours  de  force  of  this  charming  writer :  it 
will  help  the  student's  conception  of  the  precise  diffi- 
culties of  5-rhythm  if  I  briefly  describe  what  is,  so  far 
as  I  know,  the  most  successful  conquest  of  them  thus 
far  achieved  in  music.  This  is  the  "Hailing  Dans,"  or 


: 

t 

G 

t    t 

1 

u 

•  tsu  - 

tsu  - 

to  -   mo 

: 

t 

I 

I 

t 

t 

t 

u 

-  me  - 

to  -  mo 

shi  - 

ra  -    dsu 

t 

E 

I 

I 

t 

t 

t 

A 

-    ri    - 

te 

na  - 

ke   - 

re  - 

ba. 

But  it  is  more  than  possible  that  my  own  strong  expectation  of  finding 
this  rhythm,  based  upon  the  universality  of  the  form  in  all  European 
rhythmic  effort,  may  have  prejudiced  my  ear  to  hear  it  ;  and  added  to  this 
is  the  extreme  uncertainty  which  must  attend  all  nicer  judgments  upon 
rhythm  in  a  foreign  tongue.  Of  the  general  fact  of  rhythm,  however,  my 
ear  brought  a  quite  conclusive  verdict.  I  think  it  safe  to  say  that  if  the 
rhythm  of  the  poem  was  not  as  above  noted,  it  was  a  genuine,  and  very 
interesting,  case  of  pure  5-rhythm  and  7-rhythm  alternating.  It  sometimes 
sounded  quite  plainly  so.  In  this  event  the  notation  of  the  thirty-one 
syllabled  ode  would  be  : 


t 


t 


Yo   -  no   -   na   -  ka  -    wa 

c  c  c  c  c  c  c 

Yu  -  me  -  ka        u  -    tsu  -  tsu  -  ka 
U   -  tsu  -  tsu  -  to  -    mo 
U  -  me  -  to  -  mo      shi  -  ra  -  dsu 


t   t 


t       t 


A    -    ri    -   te        na  -  ke    -    re    -  ba. 

in  which  each  line  consists  of  a  single  bar,  and,  further,  in  which  each 
seven-group  seemed  to  be  pronounced  in  the  same  time  with  the  five-group. 
It  may  interest  the  curious  to  add  that  the  poem  given  is  very  striking  in 


134  Science  of  English   Verse. 

Fling,  movement  in  a  Norse  Suite  by  Mr.  Asger  Hame- 
rik,  of  Baltimore.     The  theme  is  as  follows : 


ZitZ 


With  the  utmost  adroitness  the  author  has  caused  the 
very  difficulties  of  this  5-rhythm  to  aid  the  spirit  of  the 
movement.  He  is  picturing  a  dance,  not  of  carpet- 
knights  or  Mabille  debauchees,  but  of  men  making  merry 
between  warlike  deeds,  —  Vikings  between  voyages;  and 
the  rhythmic  turmoil  and  hilarious  riot  of  their  Norse 
fling,  or  Halling-dance,  could  not  be  better  conveyed  to 
the  hearer's  ear  than  through  the  trouble  which  the  ear 
finds  in  keeping  up  with  this  rhythm  —  a  trouble  so 
great  that  even  the  trained  musicians  of  the  orchestra 
must  pay  the  strictest  attention  in  order  to  keep  the  time, 
while  to  most  hearers  there  seems  to  be  a  peculiar  mirth- 
ful jerk  of  time  in  each  bar  manifesting  itself  through 
all  the  complex  beauty  of  the  melody  and  of  its  instru- 
mentation in  the  orchestra.  If,  now,  we  investigate  this 
"jerk"  for  a  moment,  and  ascertain  exactly  by  what 
means  the  orchestral  players  keep  up  with  the  5-rhythm 
of  this  movement,  we  shall  find  that  the  question  as  to 
5-rhythm  in  our  enumeration  of  types  is  answered  by 
the  fact  that  5-rhythm,  in  its  practical  form,  is  really  a 
combination  of  3-rhythm  and  2-rhythm  (the  2-rhythm 
just  now  described  as  used  in  music  and  as  the  same 

2  4x 

with  our  4-rhythm,  A  being  same  as  g)  and  is  thus  in- 

its  significance,  and  sounds  as  if  it  came  out  of  Hamlet,  though  it  dates 
from  before  the  tenth  century.  It  may  be  translated  : 

This  life  — 

Is  it  a  dream  or  a  reality  ? 

Whether  a  reality 

Or  a  dream  we  cannot  know, 

For  it  is,  and  it  is  not. 


6- Rhythm,  8- Rhythm,  &c.  135 

eluded  in  our  list.  For  the  musical  phrase  of  the  Hall- 
ing  Dance  just  now  given  is  played  with  the  rhythmic 
accents  placed  as  indicated  by  the  mark  A  in  the  follow- 
ing, where  to  prevent  perplexing  the  student  I  have  re- 
duced every  note  in  each  bar  to  the  primary  unit  of  the 
bar,  thus  presenting  an  outline  of  the  melody: 

r    f    f 


H 


12345  12345 

That  is,  the  rhythmic  accent  recurs  the  first  time  at  the 
interval  of  3  notes,  the  next  time  at  the  interval  of 
2  notes,  then  at  3  notes,  then  at  2,  and  so  on ;  in  other 
words  we  have  practically  a  bar  of  3-rhythm,  then  a  bar 
of  2-rhythm  (our  4-rhythm),  then  a  bar  of  3-rhythm, 
then  one  of  2-rhythm,  and  so  on  :  in  short,  a  succes- 
sion of  bars  in  which  3-rhythm  regularly  alternates  with 
4-rhythm. 

Thus  5-rhythm,  so  far  as  it  is  practicable,  is  included 
in  our  two  types  3-rhythm  and  4-rhythm. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  add  that  all  rhythms  above 
5-rhythm  are  either  even  rhythms,  and  mere  doubles 
of  3-rhythm  and  4-rhythm,  —  as  6-rhythm  which  is  mere- 
ly 3-rhythm  repeated,  and  8-rhythm  which  is  merely 
4-rhythm  repeated, — or  are  odd  rhythms  and  are  con- 
trolled by  the  considerations  advanced  in  regard  to  5- 
rhythm. 

It  is  proper  here  for  the  sake  of  completeness  to  re- 
view all  the  possible  forms  of  these  two  great  types  of 
rhythm  according  as  the  rhythmic  accent  is  placed  on 
the  first,  the  second,  the  third,  &c.,  units  of  the  bar. 
Of  course  either  method  is  sufficient  to  mark  the  time, 
bar  by  bar ;  in  3-rhythm,  for  instance,  the  grouping  into 


136  Science  of  English   Verse. 

threes  is  sufficiently  indicated  to  the  ear  whether  the 
rhythmic  accent  falls  on  the  first,  the  second,  or  the 
third  unit  of  the  bar,  so  long  as  the  accent  recurs  on 
every  third  unit  after  the  first  unit  on  which  it  was 
heard. 

In  3-rhythm,  different  positions  of  the  accent  would 
give  us  the  following  possible  forms  of  bars  : 

§  t    t    t 

—  accent  on  first  unit,  understood  always  without  being 
expressed,  as  heretofore  explained  ; 


— accent  on  second  unit; 
and 


4 

;      8 

;  and3 

I 

: 

: 
t 

: 

I 

—  accent  on  third  unit. 

Similarly,  in  4-rhythm,  we   would   have   four   possible 

forms  of  bars,  according  to  accentuation  : 

8   C       t       t       I 

f  r    f    I    r 

°    /        \>        v        v 

The  general  view  of  the  two  types,  3-rhythm  and 
4-rhythm,  will  now  be  complete  if  the  possible  forms  of 
their  bars  according  to  the  number  of  separate  sounds 
in  each  be  discussed. 

No  more  fruitful  source  of  error  has  vitiated  the 
theories  of  verse  than  the  confusion  of  the  actual  num- 
ber of  sounds  in  a  bar  with  the  typical  number  of  time- 
units  in  the  bar.  For  example,  we  may  have  a  bar  of 
3-rhythm  in  which  there  is  but  one  sound  while  there 


Possible  Forms  of  Bars. 


137 


are  three  time-units,  g  |  ;  another  bar  of  3-rhythm 
in  which  there  are  two  sounds,  yet  still  three  time-units, 
o  *  ;  another  bar  of  3-rhythm  in  which  there 

are  three  sounds  and  three  time-units ;  another  bar  of 
3-rhythm  in  which  there  are  four  sounds  and  still  three 

time-units,  g  £  p  [/  *  ,  and  this  might  appear, 
according  as  we  divide  the  first,  the  second,  or  the  third, 

I  2 

eighth-note  into  two,  as  3    ff  T,  or  K          '    ff    f  > 

or  §    T       f       $    9  ;   another  bar   in  which   there   are 

o    v       v       ^    • 

five    sounds,   yet    still    the   normal    three    time-units, 

O      C  CC  UC  s       s       s       s  ' 

M       v       v         V      V         r  >     Or      Up         y         V      r  t     Or     U      r       r       P       p 

12345  12345  12345 

another  bar  in  which  there  are  six  sounds  and  yet  only 
the  three  normal  time-units,  y  p  p  p  0  p  p  ;  and  so 
on. 

But  again,  instead  of  distributing  the  normal  time- 
value  of  the  bar  among  sounds  entirely,  we  may  dis- 
tribute them  among  sounds  and  silences :  as,  for  ex- 
ample, in  either  one  of  the  above  forms  of  3-rhythm 
bars,  we  may  substitute  for  any  one  of  the  sounds  a  rest 
of  the  same  time-value,  in  which  case  the  one-sound  bar 


1 

r 

might  appear  either  as 

r 

,  o 

1    »     1 

I/ 

,  or 

t  " 

1 
;    the   two-sound   ba 

^r  t 

i       f       f 
as             [/       [/ 

,  or  as 

r  c  ^ 

»    o 

IS 

re 

:   the   three-sound    bar  as 

P  a  f  '  f 

9    ^    V     ¥ 

0  t 
ar  as      $  j; 

'  ^    C 

,  or  as 

t  j  r 

,  or  in  man] 

other  forms  ;  and  so  on. 


138 


Science  of  English   Verse. 


In  the  same  way,  any  bar  of  4-rhythm  may  be  greatly 
varied  by  variously  distributing  the  four  time-units 
among  different  numbers  of  sounds. 

It  is  of  prime  importance  for  the  reader  to  remem- 
ber in  this  connection  : 

(1)  That  the  bar  takes  its  name,  as  3-bar  (i.e.,  bar  of 
3-rhythm)  or  4-bar  (i.e.,  bar  of  4-rhythm),  not  from  the 
number  of  sounds  in  it  but  from  the  typic  number  of 
time-units  in  it : 

(2)  That   the  verse-maker  or  the  musician  may  put 
one  sound  or  one  silence,  or  any  number  of  sounds  or 
of  silences  or  of  both,  into  any  bar  of  any  form  of  any 
rhythm  in  English  poetry,  so  long  as  the  time-values  of 
these  sounds  and  silences,  when  added,  exactly  make  up 
the  normal  time-value  of  the  bar ; 

(3)  That  it  is  not  necessary  to  have  all  the  bars,  in 
any  given  piece  of  verse,  of  the  same  form  as  to  their 
number  of  sounds  or  as  to  the  distribution  of  time-value 
among  those  sounds  :  as  is  well  illustrated  in  the  scheme 
of  Tennyson's  Break,  break,  break, 

A 

r 

break, 


Break, 

A 


l" 


9     9     \  v  v  \ 

On    thy         cold  gray     stones,          O          sea ! 

0  &  i  t  t  r    CM*1 

And     I  would  that  my    tongue     could    ut    -  ter 


A 


A 

c 

a    -    rise 


r 


in        me. 


t     '      I 

The    thoughts    that 

where  a  great  diversity  of  bars  is  presented  , 

1  This'  different    method   of   writing  the   scheme   from    that    before 


Reference  to  Simplest  Form.  139 

(4)  That  even  a  change  in  the  place  of  the  rhythmic 
accent  sometimes  affords  an  agreeable  variation,  if  it  be 
for  only  one  bar  at  a  time,  and  made  after  some  rest,  or 
silence,  in  the  verse  which  prepares  the  ear  for  a  ne-/ 
accentuation,  as  at  the  beginning  of  a  line,  for  example, 
which  is  the  usual  place  for  such  a  change ; 

(5)  That  in  determining  the  typic  form  to  which  a 
given  piece  of  verse  may  be  referred,  therefore,  we  do 
not  consider  a  single  bar,  nor  two  bars,  but  look  along 
the  body  of  the  piece  at  the  sum  of  appearances  and  as- 
certain what  is  the  simplest  form  of  bar  predominating 
in  the  piece,  —  to  which  form  we  then  refer  it ;  as,  for 
example,    in    the   scheme   of  Break,    break,    break  just 
given,  we  look  along  through  the  stanza,  and,  finding 

A 

several  bars  of  the  simple  form       •       •       ,  we  refer 

y      \ 
the  poem  to  that  form,  as  the  typic  bar,  of  which  all 

the  others  are  varieties ; 

(6)  That,  in  pursuance  of  this  course,  we  may  often 
write  schemes  of  poems  which  present  only  the  main 
typic  forms  of  the  bars,  and  which  are  absolutely  accurate 
for  all  purposes  except  where  there  is  special  occasion 
to  represent  the  actual  movement  of  the  reader's  voice 
in  each  bar  of  a  poem  ;  so  that  hereafter,  in  presenting 
schemes  of  verse,  unless  qualifying  words  appear  at  the 
beginning,  it  is  to  be  understood  that  the  scheme  is 
not  intended  to  represent  the  minuter  variations  in  the 
bars  dependent  upon  this  or  that  distribution  of  time- 
values  among  this  or  that  number  of  sounds,  but  only 
the  simplest  form  of  such  distribution  which  predomi- 
nates in  the  poem  ; 

given  is  better  because  it  preserves  the  line-arrangement  of  the  words  in 
the  nutation. 


140  Science  of  English   Verse. 

(7)  That,  in  point  of  fact,  the  practice  of  English  verse 
in  persistently  repeating  certain  selected  forms  of  bar 
for  many  centuries  has  resulted  in  the  emergence  of  five 
great  forms  —  three  forms  of  3-rhythm  and  two  forms 
of  4-rhythm  —  out  of  the  large  number  of  possible 
forms  already  hinted-at,  to  which  all  the  varieties  of 
rhythm  in  English  verse  may  be  referred. 

The  student  should  now  be  exercised  with  the  utmost 
thoroughness  upon  the  matters  discussed  in  the  present 
chapter.  For  this  purpose  : 

(1)  The  scheme  of  Break,  break,  break,  should  be  re- 
quired to  be  written  from  memory  on  the  blackboard ; 

(2)  Each  bar  should  be  taken-up  in  succession  and 
the  student  caused  to  add  the  time-values  of  its  sepa- 
rate  sounds   and   silences  so   as  to  demonstrate  their 

agreement  with  the  typic  time-value  g ; 

(3)  The  various  possible  forms  of  bars  given  above 
should  be  repeated,  and  extended  through  other  distri- 
butions in   3-rhythm  and  4-rhythm,  with  the  exactest 
detail,  at  least  until  the  student  has  thoroughly  mas- 
tered the  relations  of  notes  and  the  distinction  between 
the  number  of  sounds  and  the  number  of  typic  time- 
units  in  a  bar. 


Prevalence  of  3- Rhythm.  141 


CHAPTER  V. 

OF      3-RHYTHM,     GENERALLY;      AND     SPECIALLY     OF     ITS 
THREE    FORMS. 

THE  following  chapter  will  deal : 

(1)  With  the  remarkable  fact  of  the  almost  exclusive 
prevalence  of  3-rhythm  in  English  poetry  from  its  be- 
ginning to  the  present  time,  illustrating  this  prevalence 
with    citations   from    the   Anglo-Saxon    poem    of    The 
Battle  of  Maldon  (loth  century),  and  the  later  English 
poems  of  The  Ormulum  (i3th  century),  The  Cuckoo-Song 
(i3th  century),    The    Vision  concerning  Piers  Plowman 
(i4th  century),   The   Canterbury  Tales   (i4th   century), 
The  Song  of  Ever  and  Never  (early  i6th  century),  Shak- 
spere's  Plays,  Endymion,  The  Raven,  The  Idylls  of  the 
King,  The  Psalm  of  Life,  Brahma,  and  Atalanta  in  Caly- 
don  ; 

(2)  Specially  with  blank  verse. 

I  think  no  circumstance  in  the  history  of  aesthetics  is 
so  curious  as  the  overpowering  passion  of  the  English 
ear  for  3-rhythm  as  opposed  to  4-rhythm.  From  the 
beginning  of  English  poetry  with  the  Song  of  the  Trav- 
eller, which  we  may  perhaps  refer  to  the  6th  century : 
or,  speaking  within  the  more  certain  bounds  of  poetic 
history,  from  our  father  Caedmon  :  through  all  the  won- 
derful list  down  to  the  present  day,  every  long  poem 
and  nearly  every  important  short  poem  in  the  English 
language  has  been  written  in  some  form  of  3-rhythm. 

This  being  so,  I  have  thought  that  a  brief  outline  of 


142  Science  of  English   Verse. 

the  course  of  English  rhythm — a  contour,  drawn  in 
musically-noted  schemes  of  the  rhythms  which  have 
distinguished  our  greatest  poems  —  might  form  a  meth- 
od of  presenting  the  three  forms  of  3-rhythm  not  only 
more  agreeable  than  a  stricter  order  of  treatment,  but 
more  effective  for  the  student's  clear  conception,  since 
such  an  outline  will  necessarily  be  composed  of  one 
after  another  illustration  of  the  three  forms  in  question 
as  they  have  been  applied  by  the  greatest  artists  in  our 
tongue. 

Beginning  with  Anglo-Saxon  poetry,  we  find  that 
a  single  form  of  3-rhythm  prevails  in  it  exclusively 
for  the  first  five  hundred  years  of  our  poetic  history. 
Below  will  be  given  a  scheme  in  which  one  hundred 
bars  of  a  very  noble  and  manful  Anglo-Saxon  poem 
have  been  carefully  reduced  to  notation ;  the  number 
of  simplest  forms  in  the  scheme  will  then  be  counted, 
and  a  typic  scheme  constructed  upon  the  percentage 
which  these  numbers  bear  to  the  whole  number  of  bars. 
This  procedure  will  be  found  to  reveal  quite  clearly  that 
the  typic  form  of  Anglo-Saxon  secondary  rhythm  is  an 

e0         0         0 
\t     [/     [/       with  bars 

of  the  form  g    j        \f  .  .     An   inquiry  thus  conducted 

offers  a  means  of  testing  Anglo-Saxon  rhythms  with 
mathematical  precision,  which  any  reader  may  adopt  for 
the  purpose  of  verifying  the  conclusions  herein  given. 

Before  presenting  this  scheme  it  is  worth  while  men- 
tioning that  the  fundamental  misconception,  already 
discussed,  of  the  nature  of  rhythm  as  based  upon  ac- 
cent and  not  on  quantity,  has  resulted  in  vitiating,  to  a 
greater  or  less  extent,  pretty  nearly  all  the  estimates  of 
Anglo-Saxon  rhythm  heretofore  given.  A  couple  of 


Errors  as  to  Anglo-Saxon  Rhythm.      143 

hundred  years  ago  the  learned  Hickes  declared  his  be- 
lief that  the  "feet"  of  Anglo-Saxon  poetry  should  be 
measured  by  the  laws  of  classic  quantity.  This  opinion, 
while  not  quite  correct,  seems  to  be  more  nearly  so 
than  any  subsequent  one,  except  Conybeare's. 

Dr.  Guest,  in  his  History  of  English  Rhythms,  pp. 
174-5,  has  not  hesitated  to  affirm  that  "in  none"  of  the 
Anglo-Saxon  poems  "is  found  the  slightest  trace  of  a 
temporal  rhythm,"  —  that  is  of  a  rhythm  based  upon 
time,  or  quantity.  Tyrwhitt  —  though  his  ignorance  of 
Anglo-Saxon  perhaps  deprives  of  all  authority  a  judg- 
ment which  was  often  so  penetrating  in  more  familiar 
departments  of  scholarship  —  could  see  no  rhythm  at 
all  in  Anglo-Saxon  poetry,  nor  even  its  alliteration. 

In  the  otherwise  admirable  grammatical  introduction 
of  Sweet's  Anglo-Saxon  Reader — in  many  respects  the 
most  worthy  work  of  this  nature  known  to  the  present 
author  —  the  statement  occurs  :  "the  essential  elements 
of  O.  E."  (Old  English,  or  Anglo-Saxon)  "  versification 
are  accent  and  alliteration.  .  .  .  The  number  of  unac- 
cented syllables  is  indifferent" 

The  italicized  portion  of  the  last  sentence  is  thus 
marked  for  the  purpose  of  calling  attention  to  another 
form  in  which  the  original  error  as  to  "the  essential 
element  of  rhythm  "  (supposed  to  be  accent)  appears  in 
several  modern  treatises.  The  necessary  dependence 
of  rhythm  upon  time,  or  quantity,  and  that  alone,  has 
already  been  set  forth ;  and  "  the  number  of  unaccented 
syllables"  was  therefore  so  far  from  being  "indifferent " 
that  the  ear  of  the  old  Anglo-Saxon  audience  before 
whom  the  gleeman  stood  forth  with  his  harp  and 
chanted  the  poem  could  not  have  kept  the  mighty 
rhythm  which  beats  through  all  these  songs  without  a 


144  Science  of  English   Verse. 

strict  co-ordination  of  all  the  verse-sounds,  unaccented 
as  well  as  accented. 

A  similar  statement  as  to  the  syllables  is  found  in 
that  wonderful  little  treasury,  the  Rev.  Stopford 
Brooke's  Piimer  of  English  Literature:  "It"  (that  is, 
Old  English  or  Anglo-Saxon  poetry)  "  was  not  written 
in  rime  '  nor  were  its  syllables  counted." 

Mr.  Morley,  in  his  First  Sketch,  makes  a  similar  affir- 
mation as  to  the  syllables. 

Even  Conybeare,  whose  appreciation  of  Anglo-Saxon 
rhythm  was  warm  and  enthusiastic,  nevertheless  writes, 
with  a  certain  timidity,  "  The  general  rhythm  and 
cadence  of  their"  —  the  Anglo-Saxons'  —  "verse  is  not 
altogether  undiscoverable." 

But,  accepting,  if  only  provisionally,  the  doctrine 
hereinbefore  presented  that  all  rhythm  is  necessarily 
based  upon  quantity,  and  that  this  quantity  is  only  per- 
ceived through  the  exact  co-ordination  by  the  ear  of  all 
the  individual  time-values  of  the  sounds,  or  syllables, 
both  accented  and  unaccented  :  if  we  shall  find,  upon 
reducing  a  considerable  portion  of  Anglo-Saxon  verse 
to  notation  according  to  this  hypothesis  and  actually 
"counting"  all  the  "syllables,"  that  a  definite  rhythmi- 
cal purpose  appears,  revealed  in  quite  determinate  types 
of  rhythm  which  vary  from  bar  to  bar  only  in  details 
for  the  sake  of  avoiding  monotony,  — perhaps  it  may  be 
fairly  considered  that  the  case  in  favor  of  Anglo-Saxon 
rhythm  has  been  made  out. 

With  this  view,  the  following  scheme  is  presented. 
In  order  to  give  it  an  interest  beyond  the  merely  tech- 
nical, I  have  chosen  for  notation  a  passage  from  a  poem 

1  But  see  the  Rhyming  Poem  quoted  in  Part  III.,  on  the  colors  of 
English  verse,  and  the  rhymes  in  The  Phoenix. 


Anglo-Saxon  Rhythm.  145 

written  in  993  called  The  Battle  of  Maldon  —  otherwise 
sometimes  The  Death  of  Byrhtnoth  —  which,  in  the  judg- 
ment of  my  ear,  sets  the  grace  of  great  loyalty  and  the 
grimness  of  wild  battle  to  glorious  music.  Perhaps  no 
man  could  hear  this  strain  read  aloud  without  a  notable 
stirring  of  the  blood. 

The  rhythm  of  this  poem  —  let  it  be  observed  as  the 
reader  goes  through  the  scheme  —  is  strikingly  varied 
in  time-distribution  from  bar  to  bar.  The  poem  in  fact 
counts  with  perfect  confidence  upon  the  sense  of 
rhythm  which  is  well-nigh  universal  in  our  race,  often 
boldly  opposing  a  single  syllable  in  one  bar  to  three  or 
four  in  the  next.  I  should  not  call  this  "bold,"  except 
for  the  timidity  of  English  poetry  during  the  last  two 
hundred  years,  when  it  has  scarcely  ever  dared  to  ven- 
ture out  of  the  round  of  its  strictly  defined  iambics,  for- 
getting how  freely  our  folk-songs  and  nursery-rhymes 
employ  rhythms  and  rhythmic  breaks  —  as  "Peas  por- 
ridge hot,"  for  example,  or  almost  any  verse  out  of 
Mother  Goose — which,  though  "complex"  from  the 
stand-point  of  our  customary  rhythmic  limitations,  are 
instantly  seized  and  co-ordinated  by  children  and  child- 
minded  nurses. 

A  peculiarity  of  the  Old  English  poetry  must  be  now 
mentioned  which  enabled  the  craftsman  in  words  to 
venture  upon  these  variations  with  certainty  that  the 
hearer's  ear  would  recognize  their  rhythmic  significance 
at  once.  This  was  its  well-defined  system  of  allitera- 
tion. In  most  lines  the  three  first  bars  or  feet  begin 
with  the  same  consonant ;  in  others  the  three  first  bars 
begin  with  a  vowel,  though  not  necessarily  the  same 
vowel ;  in  others  the  two  middle  bars  begin  with  the 
same  consonant :  and  in  others  the  first  and  third  bars 


146  Science  of  English   Verse. 

begin  with  the  same  consonant.  These  four  alliterative 
types  are  rarely  departed  from  :  and  thus  it  will  be  seen 
that  in  most  cases  three,  and  in  nearly  all  other  cases 
two,  distinct  rallying-points  of  rhythm  were  unequivo- 
cally indicated  to  the  ear.  For  example,  in  the  fourth 
line  of  The  Battle  of  Maldon : 

i  2  34 


hyc  -  gan   to     ban  -  dum,  to     hy  -  ge     go  -  dum  * 

the  alliterative  h's  of  hycgan,  handum,  and  hyge  deter- 

e0          0          M 
I/     I/     \i  ,  and 
'•j    0       g 

the  two  last  as  equivalent  o    |        p,  with  absolute  cer- 
tainty. 

I  wish  now  to  arrange  twenty-five  lines  from  The 
Battle  of  Maldon  so  that  the  general  reader  though 
wholly  unacquainted  with  Anglo-Saxon  may  represent 
to  himself  with  tolerable  accuracy  the  swing  and  lilt  of 
the  original  sounds.  For  this  purpose,  the  following 
simple  directions  will  suffice  to  indicate  the  pronuncia- 
tion, letters  not  given  being  sounded  as  in  modern 

English. 

a  as  a  in  "father." 

ae  "    "  "    "iruzn." 

e    "  prolonged  e  in  "  mmy." 

e    "  e  in  "rn^t." 

i     "  i    "  "  machme." 

y    "  i    "  "  /t." 

ea  nearly  as  ea  in  "razr." 

eo      "       "  eo  "  "Leoville." 

Pronounce  all  the  *r's  like  k ;  and  always  make  a  syl- 
lable of  e  at  the  end  of  a  word,  as  "  stasthc  "  =  stath-ek, 
"  stithlice  "  —  stith-lik-cJi,  "  clipode  "  =  clip-o-deh. 

1  To  combat  hand  to  hand,  with  good  heart. 


Scheme  from   The  Battle  of  Maldon.      147 

The  passage  given  is  from  line  forty-two  to  line  sixty- 
seven,  which  contains  the  manful  defiance  of  Byhrtnoth 
to  the  vikings.  We  are  in  the  year  993  :  scene,  the 
coast  of  England:  a  party  of  vikings  —  ninety-three 
ship-loads  of  them  —  have  landed,  bent  upon  plunder: 
Byrhtnoth,  a  stout  thane  of  ^thelred's,  leads  a  party  of 
English  warriors  to  oppose  the  pirates  and  forms  his 
men  along  one  bank  of  the  river  Panta  which  here  runs 
into  the  sea,  the  enemy  being  arrayed  on  the  other 
bank:  a  messenger  of  the  vikings  then  "stands  forth," 
and  "strongly  calls"  over  the  water  to  Byrhtnoth  that 
if  he  will  pay  liberal  tribute  —  "rings  for  ransom"  — 
the  vikings  will  agree  to  leave  him  unmolested  and  take 
to  their  ships  again  and  sail  away.  Whereupon  : r 


Byrht   -   noth     math-el  -   o  -  de,      bord  haf-en    -     o  -  de 

wand  wac    -    ne         aesc,  word     -     um         mael     -     de, 

yr    -    re        and      an  -  racd     a    -    geaf      him    and  -  swar  -  e :  "  ge  - 


hyrst         thu,     sae    -    li    -    da,     hwaet    this     folc      seg  -  eth?  hi 


wil-lath      eow      to      ga    -    fo    -    le       gar    -     as        syl     -     Ian, 

1  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  that  the  E  of  the  bass-clef  upon  which 
the  following  notation  is  arranged  has  no  other  significance  than  that  of  a 
convenient  tone  which  the  reader  can  strike,  if  he  chooses,  on  the  piano, 
according  to  the  rhythm  here  indicated.  It  will  be  noticed  too  that  —  as 
often  happens  in  modern  verse  —  syllables  really  belonging  to  the  last  bar 
of  a  line  often  begin  the  first  of  the  next  line.  These  for  the  sake  of  con- 
venience I  have  put  always  where  they  belong  rhythmically,  that  is,  at  the 
ends  of  their  rhythmic  phrases. 


148  Science  of  English   Verse. 


-f m- 


aet  -  tren  -  e          ord  and      cald      -      e        swurd         tha 


he  -  re  -    gea  -   tu    th'eow          aet    hild    -    e         ne     deah. 
j^nry— — a 


1 

Brim  -  man  -  na        bod  -  a,        a   -   beod       eft         on    -    gean ; 
se  -  ge    thin  -  um     leod-um    micl  -  e       lath     -     re      spell,      thaet 


-W=-lK=~PlS=lt 


^E: 


her      stent    un   -   for  -   cuth    eorl     mid       his      we    -    ro    -    de 


=*z=z=pi 


the        wi     -     le        gealg  -  i    -     an         e     -      thel      thys    -    ne, 


-  el    -    rasd  -  es       card,  eald      -      res        min    -    es, 


-p—Jpim- 

:>=J 


folc  and        fold 


an:       feal     -     Ian    sceol     -     on 


haeth-en  -  e       aet     hild  -  e.     To    hean  -  lie     me      thync  -  eth    thaet 


ge       mid     ur-um    sceatt-um        to         scip      -     e      gang    -    on 


un  -  be  -  foht  -  en    -    e,       nu        ge       thus     feor     hid    -    er  on 


ur      -      ne       card 


inn  be    -    com     -     on;         ne 


sceol  -  e  ge      swa     soft      -      e        sine  ge  -  gang      -      an : 

~f        —  £=f=c          ^L-Zm^F £j=rEEEEE£EEE 


us         sceal     ord         and     ecg        asr 


se     -    man, 


Translation  of  Passage  Noted.  149 


grimm 


guth-pleg-a       aer  we      gaf      -      ol      syll    -    on." 


llct 


tha     bord    her   -   an,      beorn     -     as     gang  -  an,     thaet 


hi        on      thaem      east  -  ae    -    the    eal 


mih-tethaer  for    wae  -  ter  -  e        wer-od   to     tham     oth    -    rum: 


tha:r 


com      flow  -  end   -   e     flod     aeft    -    er       eb 


ban, 


luc 


on       lag-  u-  stream-  as;  to     lang    hit     him   thuht     -     e,1 


"  Byrhtnoth  cried  to  him,  brandished  the  buckler,  shook  the  slim 
ash,2  with  words  made  utterance,  wrathful  and  resolute,  gave  him 
his  answer:  '  Hearest  thou,  sea-rover,  that  which  my  folk  sayeth  ? 
Yes,  we  will  render  you  tribute  ...  in  javelins  —  poisonous 
point  and  old-time  blade  —  good  weapons,  yet  forward  you  not  in 
the  fight.  Herald  of  pirates,  be  herald  once  more  :  bear  to  thy 
people  a  bitterer  message,  —  that  here  stands  dauntless  an  earl 

Byrhtnoth  mathclodc,  bord  hafenode, 
wand  wacne  atsc,  wordum  mxlde, 
yrre  and  anracd,  ageaf  him  andsware; 
'Gchyrst  thu,  satlida,  hwset  this  folc  segethT 
Hi  willath  cow  to  gafole  garas  syllan, 
sctlrcnc  ord  and  calde  swurd, 

.  tha  heregeatu  the  cow  set  hilde  ne  deah. 

Brimmana  boda,  abeod  eft  ongcan  ; 
sege  thinum  leodum  micle  lathrc  spell, 

with  his  warriors,  will  keep  us  this  country,  land  of  my  lord  Prince 
jtthelrajd,  folk  and  field  :  the  heathen  shall  perish  in  battle.  Too 
base,  methinketh,  that  ye  with  your  gold  should  get  you  to  ship  all 
unfoughten  with,  now  that  so  far  ye  have  come  to  be  in  our  land  : 
never  so  soft  shall  ye  slink  with  your  treasure  away:  us  shall 

1  The  translation  following  is  nearly  literal,  and  for  convenience  is  accompanied  with 
the  text. 

1  Ash:  i.e.  ashen  shaft  of  his  javelin,  for  which  "atsc"  is  a  common  expression. 


150  Science  of  English   Verse. 

persuade  both  point  and  blade  —  grim  game  of  war  —  ere  we  pay 
you  for  peace.' 

Bade  he  then  bear  forward  bucklers,  and  warriors  go,  till  they 

thset  her  stcnt  unforcuth  eorl  mid  his  werode, 
the  wile  geealgian  cthel  thysne, 
/Ethelraides  card,  ealdres  mines, 
folc  and  foldan :  feallan  sceolon 
haethene  jet  hilde.     To  heanlic  me  thynceth 
thaet  ge  mid  urum  sceattum  to  scipe  gangon 
unbefohlene,  nu  ge  thus  feor  hider 
on  urne  card  inn  becomon ; 
ne  sceole  ge  swa  softe  sine  gegangan  : 
ns  sceal  ord  and  ecg  acr  geseman, 
grimm  guthplega,  aer  we  gafol  syllan." 
Het  tha  bord  beran,  beornas  gangan, 

all  stood  ranged  on  the  bank  that  was  east.  Now  there,  for  the 
water,  might  never  a  foeman  come  to  the  other:  there  came  flow- 
ing the  flood  after  ebb-tide,  mingled  the  streams :  too  long,  it 
seemed  to  them,  ere  that  together  the  spears  would  come." 

than  hi  on  tham  eastaethe  ealle  stodon. 

Ne  mihte  thaer  for  waetere  werod  to  tham  othrum: 

tha^r  com  flowende  flod  sefter  ebban, 

lucon  lagustre.imas:   to  lang  hit  him  thuhte, 

hwaenne  hi  togaedere  garas  baeron. 

An  inspection  of  this  musical  map  reveals  a  rhythmic 
scheme  which  admirably  secures  power,  variety,  and  a 
certain  hurrying  rush  and  ordered  riot  of  sounds. 
Each  line  consists  of  four  bars,1  and  each  bar  of  a 
number  of  syllables  which  mark  off  determinate  periods 
of  time  for  the  ear.  The  reader  will  easily  catch  the 
essential  swing  of  the  poem  by  fixing  in  his  mind,  for 

1  The  importation  of  this  term  into  the  nomenclature  of  poetic  science 
clears  away  at  a  single  stroke  such  an  accumulation  of  errors  and  confu- 
sions as  no  one  would  be  prepared  to  believe  who  had  not  made  special 
study  of  English  criticism  during  the  last  three  hundred  years.  The 
"  foot "  of  classic  metres  was  .  .  .  whatever  fancy  might  choose  to  make 
it:  but  as  soon  as  it  is  identified  with  the  "bar"  of  music,  whose  nature 
and  functions  are  as  well  understood  as  the  simplest  mathematical  for- 
mula, it  becomes  a  thing  which  can  be  discussed  with  profit,  as  being 
matter  of  scientific  precision. 


Sum  of  Appearances.  151 

example,  the   movement  of  the  beautiful  line  (next  to 
the  last  in  the  extract  just  given) 


Thaer        com       flow  -  end   -   c          flod     asf   -    ter      ebb     -     an 
(There       came     flow  -  ing     (the)      flood    af    -   ter      ebb     -    tide) 

which  may  be  considered  the  type  of  all  the  lines.  The 
method  of  varying  this  type  so  as  to  prevent  the  move- 
ment from  growing  monotonous  may  be  accurately 
ascertained  by  the  following  calculation.  Out  of  the 
one  hundred  bars  given  above  (twenty-five  lines  with 
four  bars  each)  there  are  forty-three  bars  of  the  form 
(i)  f  f ;  thirty-four  bars  of  the  form  (2)  f  f  f ; 

0       0       0       0  r 

sixteen  bars  of  the  form  (3)  ^J  £  p,1 — which  I 
have  written  also  as  LjS  *  *,  or  [/  U«j  \t  ,  or 
*  t/  POK  ,  considering  that  in  the  absence  of  more 

minute  data  than  we  possess  as  to  Old  English  pronun- 
ciation these  forms  of  (3)  may  be  used  interchangeably, 
or  at  least  according  to  the  feeling  of  the  reader;  and 
seven  bars  of  the  form  f  ",  —  which  might  be  written 
^  "1,  or  sometimes  f  *  where  the  syllable  is  evidently 
not  meant  to  be  prolonged. 

Now,  classifying  these  four  varieties  with  reference 
to  their  effect  on  the  ear,  the  forms  (2)  and  (3)  may  be 
considered  as  one,  both  conveying  a  sense  of  rush  and 
hurry  ;  (i)  constitutes  a  class  by  itself  representing  still 

1  In  the  last  line  of  the  extract  the  second  bar  consists  of  five  syllables 
and  has  the  form  Q*  £  ^*.  I  have  classed  this  —  with  sufficient  accu- 
racy for  the  purposes  of  this  paper  -•-  in  number  (3) ;  its  separate  consid- 
eration would  involve  some  details  too  technical  to  be  presented  here,  and 
its  proportion  to  the  others  —  one  out  of  a  hundred  —  is  not  sufficient  to 
give  it  importance  as  a  mode  of  variation  of  the  typical  bar. 


152  Science  of  English   Verse. 

rapid  movement  but  more  ordered  and  governed  than 
(2)  and  (3)  ;  while  (4)  is  an  arrest  of  movement  for  an 
instant ;  as  if  the  torrent  of  metre  flowed  now  into  a 
broad  pool,  now  into  an  eddy.  From  this  point  of  view, 
grouping  (3)  with  (2),  and  considering,  as  is  actually -the 

case,  that  (3)    ^J     ]/     t/  (for  which  there  is  no  name  in 

prosody)  is  so  slightly  differentiated  from  (2)  f  f  f  as 
to  be  substantially  the  same  bar  ;  we  have,  in  our  hun- 
dred bars,  of  the  form  f  f  £  fifty  bars ;  of  the  form 
I*  f  forty-three  bars ;  and  of  the  form  f  '  seven  bars. 

This  then  is  a  fair  idea  of  the  rhythm  of  The  Death 
of  Byrhtnoth  ;  for  the  hundred  bars  given  are  thorough- 
ly representative  of  the  whole  piece  and  the  number 
seems  large  enough  to  render  deductions  reliable.  The 
speech  of  Byrhtnoth  which  they  include  cannot  fail  to 
delight  every  ear :  in  truth  I  do  not  know  where  to  look 
in  English  poetry,  old  or  new,  for  a  succession  of  words 
which  make  more  manly  music  as  mere  sounds. 

The  form  of  bar  $    $    f     f  which  occurs  so  often  in 

Ku  PI    *    V 

math -el  -  o  -  de 

the  foregoing  scheme  is  by  no  means  given  as  the  only 
manner  of  noting  those  sounds,  and  perhaps  may  not 
suit  the  actual  movement  of  many  voices.  It  offers  an 
interesting  point  of  comparison  with  exactly  similar 
modern  forms,  where  in  a  3-rhythm  poem  we  often  find 
a  bar  consisting  of  four  sounds.  For  example  :  in  Ten- 
nyson's Charge  of  the  Light  Brigade,  the  four  sounds 

o 
"  val-ley  of  death  "  are  placed  in  a  bar  of  H  time,  thus  : 


c  t  t 

All       in       the 


2 


?  5  C   C 

If      If     ^       " 

val  -  ley    of  death 


:  I  c 


rode  the    six 


4 


t 


hund  -  red 


123  1234  123  i  2 


Typic  Anglo-Saxon  Scheme.  153 

Instead,    however,    of    delivering    this    second    bar   as 

e0       0       0          0 
$    $    U     v  »  many  voices  would  make  a   distribution 

val-ley  of  death 

of  time-values  among  the  four  sounds  which  would  be 
represented  by  the  following  formula  of  notation  well- 
known  in  music  *• '  §  £  £  £  £  where  the  straight 

val  -  ley     of  death 

line  drawn  over  the  four  notes  indicates  that  they  are 
to  be  played,  or  uttered,  in  the  time  of  three  of  the 
same  notes :  a  rhythmic  device  depending  upon  a  pro- 
cess exactly  opposite  to  that  of  the  triole  already  ex- 
plained, where  0  I  0  (for  example)  indicates  that 

the  three  notes  £  £  £  are  to  be  played  in  the  time 
of  two  f  £. 

The  method  illustrated  in 


Math -el  -  o  -  de 


C     C    *    seems  generally 


val  -  ley    of    death 


o  / 

Math-el  -  o  -  de 


t   t 


val  -ley  of  death, 

and  would  have  been  adopted  in  the  foregoing  scheme 
except  for  the  desire  to  concentrate  the  student's  atten- 
tion upon  the  special  purpose  of  the  scheme  and  there- 
fore to  avoid  all  preliminary  explanations  that  could  be 
dispensed-with.  It  will  be  hereafter  used,  except  when 
other  forms  specially  commend  themselves. 

The  rhythm  revealed  by  the  scheme  given  for  Byrht- 
noth's  speech    is   the   typic    rhythm    of    Anglo-Saxon 

§000  0  0 

\>     v     v      I        U 

(representing  the  two  typic  simple  forms  of  bar  which, 


154 


Science  of  English   Verse. 


alternating  with  each  other,  largely  predominate  in 
every  poem)  never  varies  from  the  beginning  to  the 
end  of  what  we  may  call  Anglo-Saxon  poetry,  though 
the  number  of  bars  to  the  line  is  occasionally  differ- 
ent. This  may  appear  in  illustrative  passages  from  the 
following  poems,  which  cover  four  centuries  :  Caedmon's 
Paraphrase,  7th  ;  Beowulf,  8th  ;  The  Wanderer  (unknown 
date  ;  possibly),  gth  ;  the  scheme  already  given  from 
the  Battle  of  Maldon,  loth. 

From  Caedmon  (as  preserved  in  King  Alfred's  Anglo- 
Saxon  translation  of  Beda's  Ecclesiastical  History] : 


I 

2 

3 

4 

c  t  c  c 

c  r  c 

c  c  c  c 

r  ••• 

Nu    we  sceol-on 

her  -  i  -  an 

heo  -  fon  -  ric  -  es 

Weard, 

S 

6 

7 

8 

c  c  c 

c  *  *  c 

r     c 

r  ^ 

let    -    od   -   es 

mih  -  te       and      his 

mod    -    ge 

thonc.1 

Though  belonging  more  strictly  to  a  monograph  on 
Anglo-Saxon  rhythm,  it  is  worth  while  interrupting  this 
series  for  a  moment  in  order  to  call  attention  to  a  prin- 
ciple, illustrated  in  the  bars  marked  I  and  3  of  this 
Csedmon  scheme,  which  is  of  application  in  the  proper 
delivery  and  notation  of  almost  every  line  of  Anglo- 
Saxon  poetry.  Considering  first  the  bar  number  3, 


t  t  :  t 

heo  -  fon  -  ric  -  es, 

the  word  is  a  compound  one,  of  "heo-fon"  —  which  is 
heaven  —  and  "ric-es,"  which  is  the  genitive  case  of 

1  Nu     we  sceolon   herian  heofonrices  Weard, 

Now  we    shall  praise  (the)  heaven-kingdom's  Ward  (i.e.  guardian) 
Metodes     mihte  and  his  modgethonc 
(the)  Creator's  might  and  his  mood-thinking  (i.e.  the  thoughts  of  his  heart). 


Anglo-Saxon   Contractions.  155 

"rice,"  kingdom.  This  genitive  in  es  is  the  origin  of 
our  modern  English  possessive  case,  formed  by  the  apos- 
trophe and  s.  There  can  be  no  doubt  —  but  the  reasons 
cannot  here  be  given  —  that  this  contraction  of  the  pos- 
sessive case  prevailed  in  common  speech  a  long  time 
before  it  was  indicated  in  writing,1  —  as  indeed  always 

1234 
happens:  and  hence  a  four-sound  word  like  "heofonrices" 

was,  in  the  gleeman's  oral  reproduction,  practically  a 
three-sound  word  "  heofonric's  "  —  or,  as  it  would  be  if 
"rice"  had  survived  in  this  connexion,  heavenric's  — 

Q     0        0        0 

and  should  therefore  have  the  notation  y  \>     ^     \> 

heo  -  f  on  -  ric's 

in  which  it  presents  us  with  the  simple  typic  bar  of 
3-rhythm,  instead  of  the  rarer  form  H  £  £  £  * 

heo  -  fon  -  ric  -  es 

A  process  exactly  similar  converts  bar  number  i  cf 
the  Caedmon  scheme  H    I  into   the  same 


simple  typic  bar  c  £     * 


Nu    we  sceol  -  on 
1234 


for   the  word   sceolon 


Nu    we  sce-jl'ii 
i       2      3 

(sc  here  representing  our  modern  sh)  is  the  first  person 
plural  of  the  modern  form  sJiall,  agreeing  with  "we" 
—  " Nu  we  sceolon"  =  Now  we  shall — and  just  as  in 
modern  English  we  contract  such  a  two-sound  word  as 

1  \Ve  begin  to  find  similar  ones  indicated  early  in  the  I3th  century,  as 
for  example  in  the  Cuckoo-Song  presently  quoted  where  immediately  after 
"  bleteth  "  (bleateth)  comes  "  louth  "  which  is  a  one-sound  contraction  of 
the  two-sound  "  lou-eth  "  or  loweth  (sc.  the  cow  loweth  after  the  calf,  &c.). 
All  through  the  Cuckoo-Song  the  liberty  of  making  or  not  making  such 
contractions,  according  as  the  rhythm  may  suggest,  is  apparent 


156 


Science  of  English   Verse. 


"swollen"  into  a  one-sound  word  "swol'n,"  —  or  as  in 
German  verse  schullen  appears  as  schull'n,  siehen  as 
sieh'n,  gluhen  as  gliih'n,  and  the  like  —  so  there  can  be 
no  doubt  that  in  the  excited  utterance  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  gleeman  "  sceolon "  would  cease  to  be  a  two- 
sound  word  "  sceol-on  "  and  become  a  one-sound  word 

I  2 

"  sceol'n," 1  thus  giving  us  the  simple  typic  bar 
3 


\f     ^    instead  of 

Nu    we  sceol'n 


;    v     \f     v     v 

Nu     we  sceol  -  on 


A  further  application  of  the  principle  which  underlies 
both  these  processes  —  the  principle  of  connected  utter- 
ance,, which  drops  out  or  slurs  over  so  many  unaccented 
sounds  in  every  sentence  of  modern  speech  —  would 
reduce  bar  number  6  in  the  Csedmon  scheme,  from 

C     * 


3  f 


f     f 


miht  -  e     ond     his 


to 


—  the    typic    simple 


miht'  ond  his 


form  —  by  the  well-known  custom  of  eliding  or  slurring- 
out  the  last  vowel  of  a  word  (here  the  e  in  "  miht-e  ") 
before  the  first  vowel  of  the  next  (here  the  o  in  "  ond  "). 
Proceeding,  in  the  light  of  these  developments,  to 
note  the  later  Anglo-Saxon  rhythms :  the  following, 

from  the  great  Anglo-Saxon  epic  of  Beowulf,  continues 

o 
the  same  forms  of    ^  bar  which  we  find 

Paraphrase, 

3  r    r    r 

g  U       V       v 

Tha    waes    on       heal        -        le        heard 

t  :    r      • 

Sweord  o    -    fer        set!        -       urn,       sid 


in  Caedmon's 

5 

r 

* 

ecg 

to    - 

gen, 

t 

r 

( 

and 

man 

-    ig 

1  Chaucer  gives  it  as  schulln :  one  syllable. 


Schemes  from  Beowulf  and  The   Wanderer.  157 


f 

haf 


P    C    C     '    '    ' 

hand  -  a      faest,      helm    ne        ge  - 


r    c 

mund  -     e.1 


Where  we  perceive  always  the  typic  forms  f    f    f    and 
f    f  prevailing. 

Scheme  of  the  opening  lines  of  The  Wanderer: 


3  r 

8  1 

B 

t 

C    f 

C    C 

f 

r     c 

Oft 

him 

an  - 

ha    -  ga 

a   -   re 

ge- 

bid     -     eth, 

c 

C 

C 

r 

c 

f    C 

f 

C  '  t 

Met  - 

od 

-   es 

milts 

e, 

theah  the 

he 

mod-cea-  rig 

C 

C 

t 

r 

t 

r 

e 

r     c 

geond 

lag 

-    u  - 

lad 

e 

long 

e 

sceold  -    e 

c 

c 

i 

0 

c 

C    f 

c 

P               I 

hre  - 

ran 

mid 

hond 

•      um 

hrim  -  cald 

-  e 

ss.2 

It  is  impossible  to  quote  these  opening  thoughts  of 
The  Wanderer  without  calling  attention  to  a  profound 
mournfulness  and  gentle  dignity  which  breathe  subtly 
out  of  the  melodious  movement  of  the  verse.  Nothing 
could  be  more  beautiful  than  the  rhythmic  play  of  this 
poem.  Even  those  who  understand  no  word  of  Anglo- 
Saxon  must  be  deeply  impressed  with  the  tender  sing 
which  goes  all  along  through  the  poem,  when  it  is  prop- 
erly read  aloud. 

As  the  reader  easily  observes,  it  carries  on  the 
rhythmus  of  £  £  £  and  f  f,  so  striking  in  the  other 
poems. 

It  will  afford   some  striking   suggestions  if  we  now 

1  There  was  in  hall  (the)  falchion  brandished, 
Swords  over  benches,  many  a  buckler 
(was)  high-hovcn,  fast  in  hand,  helmet  not  minded. 
*  Often  the  Solitary  prayeth  for  mercy, 
—  (for)  God's  compassion,  —  though  he,  mood-careful, 
over  the  water-ways  long-time  should 
stir  with  (his)  hands  the  rime-cold  sea. 


158 


Science  of  English   Verse. 


compare  these  very  earliest  rhythms  of  our  language 
with  the  very  latest :  and  for  this  purpose  let  the 
schemes  of  modern  rhythm  be  next  given,  instead  of  at 
the  last,  leaving  the  intermediate  schemes  to  be  after- 
wards presented  in  their  historical  order. 

For  this  purpose  compare  the  following  schemes,  (i) 
from  Swinburne's  Atalanta  in  Calydon,  and  (2)  William 
Morris's  Love  Is  Enough. 

From  Atalanta  in  Calydon: 

8  v      v      v 

Where  shall  we 

r    t 


find         her, 


how    shall    we 


sing      to      her 


Fold          our 

From  Love  Is  Enough : 


t  t  •    r    t    r 

hands  round  her       knees,       and         cling? 


%tt: 

t    t    t 

t    t    t 

V       P       V       V 

Love  is       e    - 

nough  :  tho'  the 

world  be      a    - 

wan  -  ing.And  the 

'    t    t 

woods  have     no 

t     t    t 

voice   but      the 

t    '    t 

voice   of      com- 

f        f    "* 

^  .  r 

plain  -ing. 

Nothing  can  be  more  suggestive  than  the  evident 
tendency  of  these  latest  rhythms  to  return  to  the  precise 
rhythmic  forms  of  the  fathers. 

Resuming  the  historic  order  :  after  the  purer  Anglo- 
Saxon,  of  which  specimens  have  been  given  from  Caed- 
mon,  Beowulf,  &c.,  up  to  the  roth  century  (the  Battle  of 
Maldon  probably  dates  993),  take  the  following  scheme 
from  the  Ormulum,  a  poem  probably  of  the  early  part 
of  the  1 3th  century.  Orm,  or  Ormin,  the  author,  is 
addressing  his  brother  in  the  beginning  of  the  poem 
and  recounting  how  his  brother  had  thought  that  if  he 
(Orm)  would  put  "inntill  Ennglissh"  (into  English) 


Scheme  from  The  Ormulum. 


159 


the  Gospel's  holy  lore  (Goddspelless  hallghe  lare)  it 
might  well  turn  to  mickle  profit  (frame)  &c.  The 
metre  of  this  poem  is  most  artfully  arranged  to  carry 
out  its  3-rhythm,  and  the  flow  of  it  is  wonderfully  fine. 
The  final  e's  must  all  be  pronounced,  as  in  Anglo- 
Saxon  :  for  instance  "wolld-e  yern-e  lern-en,"  where 
each  final  e  makes  a  separate  syllable,  in  sound  much 
like  the  exclamation  eh,  or  somewhat  more  open  than 
the  French  mute  e  as  read  in  poetry ;  except  where,  as 
in  "  forr  lufe  off  Crist "  (for  love  of  Christ)  the  e  of 
"lufe"  is  plainly  slurred  into  the  o  of  "off"  making 
practically  one  sound. 


> 

A 

A 

A 

1    r 

c   r 

t     f 

t   r 

Thu    thohht    - 

est        tatt 

itt      mihht    - 

e         wel 

A 

t   r 

:   r 

t   r  • 

f     * 

Till       mik     - 

ell        fram    - 

e        turrn     - 

en, 

t   r 

t   r 

?   r 

t   r 

Yiff     Enngl    - 

issh      follk, 

forr       luf-e 

of       Crist 

t   r 

t   r 

t   r 

t      s 

Itt       wolld    - 

e         yern    - 

e         lern     - 

enn, 

t    r 

t   r 

r   r 

c    r 

And     follgh   - 

enn         itt, 

and       fill 

enn        itt 

p    r 

t   r 

t   r 

C     * 

Withth   thoht, 

withth    word, 

withth     ded      - 

e. 

It  will  be  profitable,  with  the  insertion  of  only  a  few 
occasional  sounds  of  eh  and  en  to  replace  the  termina- 
tional  e  and  en,  to  reproduce  this  rhythm  by  giving  the 
modern  equivalents,  word  for  word,  of  the  text,  which 
should  be  read  aloud,  pronouncing  the  eh  and  en  wher- 
ever they  occur : 


160  Science  of  English   Verse. 

Thou  thoughtest  that  it  might  (-eh)  well 

To  mickle  profit  turn  (-en) 
If  English  folk,  for  love  of  Christ, 
It  would  (-eh)  gladly1  learn  (en), 
And  follow  it  and  fill  (-en) 2  it 

With  thought,  with  word,  with  deed  (-eh): 

a  process  exactly  parallel  with  the  modern  French  habit 
of  reading  their  poetry  in  which  the  old  custom  of  pro- 
nouncing the  (now)  rnute-^  is  retained  though  it  has 
long  vanished  from  current  speech. 

Take  next  a  rhythmic  scheme  of  the  Cuckoo-Song, 
which  may  be  a  few  years  later  in  date.  This  bright 
spring-song  is  of  special  interest  in  the  present  connex- 
ion because  the  music  to  which  its  words  are  found  set 
has  a  rhythm  so  exactly  reproducing  the  typical  rhyth- 
mic scheme  of  the  poem  that  it  is  hardly  necessary  to 
do  more  than  transcribe  the  notes  of  the  music,  disre- 
garding the  changes  of  pitch,  in  order  to  obtain  the 
following  scheme, — with  the  exception  of  a  minute 
variation  in  one  bar  where  the  sound  "  in  "  is  prolonged, 
in  singing,  during  the  time  of  the  rest  which  would  pre- 
vent its  drawl  in  utterance. 

On  this  account,  as  well  as  because  the  poem  has 
pre-eminence  as  not  only  one  of  the  first  English  songs 
but  as  the  first  found  with  the  music  to  which  it  was 
sung,3  the  first  four  lines  of  the  typic  scheme  are  here 
given  and  then  the  music  of  the  whole  is  added,  with 
the  accompanying  words. 

1  The  word  in  the  text  is  yerne,  i.e.,  yearningly. 

2  Fillenn  itt,  i.e.,/w/fill  (-en)  it. 

3  It  was  recovered  from  Harleian  Ms.  978  in  the  British  Museum,  which 
seems  to  have  been  a  monk's  commonplace-book  or  omnium  gatherum. 
Sir  Frederic  Madden  dates  it  about  1240. 


3  •     r 

8  >          * 

Sum  -    er 

r    c 

Lhud    -   e 

r    c 

Grow    -    eth 

r    c 

springth  x   the 
Allegretto. 

77*£  Cuckoo-Song. 

r    c     r    c     r 

is              i      -       cum    -    en             in, 

r    c     r    •>     s 

sing         cue    -        cu, 

r    c     r    t     r 

sed         and          blow    -    eth           med 

r    t     r    •>     * 

w      -de    -        nu3. 
CUCKOO-SONG.3 

161 

i 

i 

c 

And 

1 

i    •  ?               ^ 

fl 

r      r   i  p  •    i         P 

N    1 

xt  '  x          r 

T- 

4  HfctHi  —  it  -^ 

^4 

f3)"~ft  —  '  ^~~ 

ix_ 

—  hW^    lg  *  

—  *=F 

Sum  -  er      is         i  - 

cum  -  en    in  ...    Lhud  -  e    sing 

k                                  K                               i. 

cue- 

Lf   ,                                  I                                     . 

—  P                  r                  v 

^^      T                                   i      1* 

J     "             m      _i          J      - 

B 

•  r  ^  L*          9l~*          1    '       * 

•        m                       *            *        m 

V      '                                     f"                               9 

* 

cu  1                 Grow   - 

eth    sed,      and  blow  -  eth  med, 

And 

\J  \              \ 

r    '       m  '       \     ' 

'JLn              * 

• 

1     .             >i 

^ 

im      » 

1, 

_~  •    ^ 

•^   •    1 

v~p              |^ 

/ 

i 

springth  the    uu    -   de    nu.                   Sing      cue    -    cu  I 

y                 p 

rX    1 

i               i        n      i        n     i 

/f\j    i 

J              P 

-     TJL            J 

PH 

C>       EE 

—^—1 

f            —  *—  J  —  EEEE 

A    -    we    blet  -  eth    aft  -  er  lomb,  Ihouth  aft  -  er    calv   -    e 

1  For  springrM  /  see  the  preceding  remarks  on  contractions. 
*  Summer  is  (y-)  come  (-n)  in, 

Loudly  sing,  cuckoo! 
Groweth  seed  and  bloweth  mead 
And  spring  (e)  th  the  wood  (e)  now. 

3  In  the  two  bars  marked  with  a  cross  near  the  end  the  words  are 
assigned  to  the  notes  differently  from  the  original,  the  monkish  transcriber 
having  been  careless,  as  is  apparent  from  his  wholly  gratuitous  and  un- 
necessary disregard  of  the  ordinary  custom,  at  this  point.  As  for  the 
pronunciation  it  may  be  sufficiently  imitated,  for  all  present  purposes,  by 
giving  all  the  vowels  long  —  except  the  /'  short  as  in  modern  in,  and  e 
much  like  long  a,  and  pronouncing  all  the  final  <-'s  as  separate  syllables, 
like  eh. 


l62 


Science  of  English   Verse. 


3BZB 

N» 

J                       J 

J*                            1* 



9              9      1- 

b 

Bui    -    loc  stert  -   eth,  buck  -   e     vert    -    eth 

i     * 


Mur  -  ie     sing     cue  -  cu, 
*  i 


cue    -    cu,       cue    -   cu,      wel 


sing  -  es  thu      cuc-cu,      ne  .  .  .  swik    thu  nav  -  er  nu. 


Sumer  is 
Summer  is 
Lhude  sing 


icomen  in, 

come    in 

cuccu  1 


Loudly  sing,  cuckoo  ! 
Groweth  seel,  and  bloweth  med, 
Groweth  seed  and  bloweth.  mead 
And     springth     the  uude  nu. 
And  spring  (e)  th  the  wood  now. 

Sing,  cuccu  ! 

Sing,  cuckoo, 
Awe  bleteth  after  lomb, 
Ewe  bleateth  after  lamb, 

Lhouth  after    calve        cu. 
Loweth  after  calf  (the}  cow 
(&.,  the  cow  loweth  after  the  calf). 
Bulloc  sterteth,  bucke  verteth, 
Bullock  starteth,   buck  verteth, 

(i.e.  seeketh  the  green  ;  French,  vert  :  —  but  the  word  is  not  certainly  this) 
Murie    sing,  cuccu  ! 
Merrily  sing,  cuccu  ! 
Cuccu,   cuccu  1 
Cuckoo,  cuckoo  ! 
Wel  singes   thu,   cuccu, 
Well  s  ingest  thou,  cuckoo 
Ne  swik  thu  naver  nu. 
Cease  not  thou  never  now. 


Scheme  from  The  Vision  of  Piers  Plowman.  163 


s  *    * 

Here1  the  typic  bar  is  theg  j      £    » which  we  found  to 

be  one  of  the  two  predominant  forms  in  Anglo-Saxon 
poetry. 

Coming  down  from  the  I3th  to  the  I4th  century,  next 
is  a  scheme  of  the  four  opening  lines  of  The  Vision  con- 
cerning Piers  Plowman.  Probably  no  rhythm  was  ever 
so  thoroughly  misunderstood  as  the  gentle  and  inces- 
sant sing  which  winds  along  through  these  alliterative 
fixed-points  as  a  running  brook  among  its  pebbles. 
The  reader  will  observe  that  we  have  here  still  the 

O       0         0         0       i 

typic   bar  u    £     £     £        overwhelmingly  predominant 

in  the  poem,  but  with  the  rhythmic  accent  at  the  second 
time-unit  of  the  bar  instead  of  the  first. 


A 

A 

? 

l  r 

c 

f 

i 

b 

a  som 

er 

se    - 

son 

A 

A 

5 

t   t 

f 

t 

J    J 

I 

shop  -  e 

me  in  shroud  - 

es    as 

j   i  t 

whan   soft  was 

£  I  t 

the  son  -  ne 

5  s  i 
\s  ^  ' 

I      a  shep      - 

A 
t   t   ' 

e     wer  -  e 

1  This  was  sung  as  a  part-song  for  four  or  six  voices.  As  such  it  pro- 
duces a  delightfully  outdoor  and  breezy  effect.  The  method  of  singing  it 
was  as  follows.  The  melody  is  of  such  a  character  that  any  four  bars  of 
it  will  harmonize  with  any  other  four.  Therefore,  taking  three  sopranos 
and  cither  contralto  or  bass  voice,  the  procedure  is :  first  soprano  sings 
iii>t  four  bars  alone:  second  strikes-in  at  fifth  bar,  singing  from  the  be- 
ginning, and  goes  on  with  the  first  voice  which  is  always  four  bars  ahead 
of  the  second:  third  voice  strikes-in  on  the  ninth  bar,  singing  from  the 
beginning,  and  then  goes  on  with  the  other  two,  in  the  manner  of  a  catch 
or  round.  Meantime  the  contralto,  or  bass,  sings  all  the  time,  over  and 
over,  the  following /«,  or  burden,  until  the  song  is  finished : 


Sing 


cue     -    cu 


nu, 


Sing    cue     -    cu. 


1 64 


Science  of  English   Verse. 


A 

A 

c    c  c 

In       hab  -  i-te 

5  5  5  g  f 

V         V         V         y         i^ 

as  an  her-  e  -  mit 

A 

A 

c    c  c 

Went     wyd  -  e  in 

f   r 

this     world, 

A 

A 

t 

c  c 

C   f  C 

e  un 

-  ho  -  ly 

of   werk  -  es 

A 

A 

1 

P  C 

•  e  c 

wond  -  res 

to    her  -  e. 

This  is  the  rhythmus  of  the  third  movement  in  Bee- 
thoven's Seventh  Symphony  which  succeeds  the  awful 
Heart-beat  March  of  the  second  movement.  It  is  con- 
ventionally written  with  anacrusis  or  unaccented  note  at 
the  beginning,  thus 

£   *   £   £   £ 


but  the  more  accurate  method  would  be 

A 

£  t 


^L 


t 


/  \ 

^ 


if  the  music  were,  like  the  poem,  in  lines  each  of  which 
begins  with  an  unaccented  sound. 

An  expression  occurs  in  the  Palladis  Tamia,  Wifs 
Treasury,1  of  Francis  Meres,  printed  in  1598,  concern- 
ing this  rhythm  of  Piers  Plowman  which  is  very  remark- 
able as  betraying  an  appreciation  of  its  true  nature  for 
which  one  would  not  look  in  the  i6th  century.  Says 
Maister  Meres  (p.  156,  line  24,  of  the  NEW  SHAKSPERE 
SOCIETY'S  Series  IV,  Part  I,  1874)  '  "As  Homer  was 
the  first  that  adorned  the  Greek  tongue  with  true  quan- 
tity: so  Piers  Plowman  was  the  first  that  observed  the 

1  The  book  so  dear  to  all  Shakspere  students  from  its  mentioning  — 
and  thus  limiting  the  date  of  —  several  of  Shakspere's  plays. 


Langland' s  and  Chaucer  s  Rhythms.       165 

true  quantity  of  our  verse  without  the  curiositie  of 
rime."  This  utterance  of  Meres  becomes  all  the  more 
curious  if  we  compare  it  with  Puttenham's  remark  in 
The  Arte  of  English  Poesie  upon  "  that  nameles  who 
wrote  the  Satyre  called  Piers  Plowman  " — as  he  terms 
Langland  '  in  another  place.  ..."  His  verse "  (says 
Puttenham)  "is  but  loose  metre,  and  his  termes  hard 
and  obscure,  so  as  in  them  is  litle  pleasure  to  be  taken." 

This  outline  of  our  rhythmic  history  has  now  reached 
a  most  notable  point  as  we  advance  from  Langland  to 
Chaucer.  Although  Langland  and  Chaucer  were  con- 
temporaries and  were  writing  their  books  at  the  same 
moment,  yet  Langland  differs  from  Chaucer  in  such  a 
way  that  he  must  be  considered  to  terminate  the  ancient 
period,  as  clearly  as  Chaucer  begins  the  modern  period, 
of  English  poetry.  Langland  belongs  with  Aldhelm, 
Caedmon  and  Cynewulf ;  Chaucer  with  Shakspere, 
Keats  and  Tennyson.  A  cunning  enough  confirmation 
of  this  view  crops-out  in  the  citation  just  made  from 
Puttenham.  In  the  same  chapter2  in  which  he  finds 
Langland  such  as  in  him  "  is  litle  pleasure  to  be  taken  " 
he  finds  Chaucer  thoroughly  delightful :  a  curious  in- 
stance where,  of  two  contemporary  poets,  the  one  is  so 
archaic  in  rhythm  and  speech  that  neither  is  under- 
stood by  a  critic  of  his  own  tongue  only  two  centuries 
off,  while  the  other  is  so  modern  in  both  that  he  is  not 
only  understood  but  freely  enjoyed  by  the  same  critic. 

Not  that  we  get  out  of  3-rhythm,  at  all,  when  we 
leave  Langland  and  the  ancients  for  Chaucer  and  the 

1  Or  Langley:  see  Professor  C.  H.  Pearson's  paper  in  The  North 
British  Re\'iew  for  April,  1870. 

*  Chapter  XXXI ;  v.pp.  75-6;  of  The  Arte  of  English  Poesie.  Arber 
reprint,  Murray  &  Son.  London,  1869. 


1 66  Science  of  English   Verse. 

moderns  :  that  maintains  its  hold  undisturbed.  But  in 
Chaucer  we  come  for  the  first  time  upon  a  special  form 
of  3-rhythm  which  thereafter  prevails  with  almost  un- 
broken uniformity  throughout  English  poetry.  It  has 
been  customary  to  refer  the  origin  of  English  blank 
verse  to  Surrey's  translation  of  part  of  the  yEneid  in  the 
earlier  half  of  the  i6th  century,  in  which  that  noble 
poet  used  lines  consisting  of  five  bars,  the  typic  bar 

A 

having  the  form  •     0  .     But  this  is  Chaucer's  rhyth- 

mus  :  all  the  Canterbury  Tales  in  verse  —  except  the 
comical  Sir  TJwpas  and  the  surely  spurious  Cokes 
Tale  of  Gamelyn  —  are  written  in  a  rhythm  whose 
description  merely  repeats  that  given  above  for  Surrey's 
rhythm,  —  namely,  lines  of  five  bars  each,  the  typic  bar 

A 

having  the  form  •     »  .     It  is  true  that  Chaucer  used 

rhyme,  while  Surrey  did  not :  and  in  this  respect  Sur- 
rey's verse  was  "  blank,"  as  opposed  to  Chaucer's  :  but  it 
was  not  blank  as  opposed  to  Caedmon's  and  Cynewulf's ; 
in  fact  English  poetry  for  its  first  five  hundred  years 
was  without  rhyme  1  —  that  is,  was  blank  verse.  Surrey 
therefore  was  neither  the  first,  by  nearly  a  thousand 
years,  to  discard  rhyme  in  English  verse ;  nor  was  he 
the  first,  by  more  than  a  hundred  and  fifty  years,  to  use 


the  line  of  five 


t  r 


s. 


Inasmuch   as    this   form 


—  to  which  we 


r 

now  come  in  the  Chaucer  scheme  —  corresponds  to  the 
classic  iambus,  which  is  described  as  a  short  (f )  before 

1  Except  as  heretofore  noted.  Observe,  further,  the  error  of  Meres  in 
affirming  that  Piers  Plowman  is  the  first  English  poem  which  observes 
the  true  quantity  of  our  verse  "  without  the  curiositie  of  rime." 


Chaucer s  and  Surrey's  Rhythms.        167 


a  long  (f ),  let  us,  for  the  sake  of  a  convenient  and  suf- 
ficiently precise  term,  always  hereafter  designate  this 
as  the  iambus :  the  reader  always  understanding  that 
when  the  word  "iambus"  is  used,  it  is  equivalent  to 

o  A 

the  words  :  "one  bar  of  the  typic  form  £    •     •       ." 

And,  to  acquire  beforehand  another  convenient  term 
which  belongs  to  the  consideration  of  the  fourth  order 
of  rhythm  —  the  line-group,  or  metre  —  let  us  designate 
a  line  which  consists  of  five  bars  as  a  line  of  5. 

In  this  terminology,  therefore,  the  lines  both  of 
Chaucer  and  of  Surrey  may  be  conveniently  called 
iambic  5*s  so  far  as  the  rhythm  is  concerned  :  though 
the  term  "blank  verse"  has  come  to  be  exclusively 
limited  to  that  rhythm  when  it  is  used  without  rhyme. 

The  reader  is  therefore  to  understand  that  when 
Surrey  is  said  to  be  the  father  of  blank  verse,  nothing 
more  can  be  meant  than  that  he  first  used  without 
rhyme  a  rhythm  which  was  at  least  as  old  as  Chaucer. 

The  typic  scheme  of  the  first  four  lines  in  Chaucer's 
Knyghtes  Tale  (the  first  of  the  Canterbury  Tales)  is  this  : 


I 

->            A 

2 
A 

3  A 

4 

A 

5  A 

It  f 

\Vhilom 

t  r 

as     old   - 

t  r 

e       sto    - 

t     f 

ries      tell    - 

t  r 

en       us 

A 

A 

A 

A 

A 

f  r 

There  was 

a     due 

t  r 

that    hight  - 

e      The    - 

t  r 

se    -    us 

A 

A 

A 

A 

A 

Of    Atth  - 

en-es  he 

t  r 

was    lord 

t  r 

and    gov    - 

t    f 

er  -  nour 

And     in 

his    tyin    - 

t  rh 

e      swich 

f  r 

a      con    - 

que  -  rour.1 

Text  taken  from  Kites  mere  Manuscript,  six-text  edition,  Chaucer  Society. 


i68 


Science  of  English   Verse. 


Two  points  in  connection  with  this  scheme  are  of 
interest. 

(i)  Let  the  student  observe  the  process  of  transition 
from  the  pure  Anglo-Saxon  rhythm,  through  Lang- 
land's,  to  Chaucer's.  The  Anglo-Saxon  presented  us 

with  the  typic  a  *  \>  \t  ;  Langland  presents  us 
the  same,  only  the  accent  has  been  transferred  to  the 
second  time-unit  instead  of  the  first  §  »  »  • 

o  y  v    i/   1» 

while  Chaucer  presents  the  same  as  Langland,  only  the 
last  two  of  the  three  eighth-notes  have  joined  together 
into  a  quarter-note  —  as  if  in  music  we  should  write 

f  f  where  the  slur  "  s  binds  together  the  two  sounds 
f  f.  into  one  sound  precisely  equivalent  to  f —  so  that 


in  Chaucer  we  have  instead  of 


t  r 


,  the  form, 


The  second  point  is  connected  with  this  same  transi- 
tion, and  concerns  the  very  interesting  link  of  it  which 
we  find  in  the  resemblance  of  the  last  bar  in  most  of 
Chaucer's  lines  to  the  last  bar  in  nearly  all  of  Lang- 
land's  lines.  In  Chaucer,  the  last  sound  of  almost 
every  line  is  an  e  (the  lines  quoted  from  the  Knight's 
Tale  happen  not  to  be  such  lines),  whose  rhythmic 
value  is  expressed  in  the  fifth  bar  of  each  line  of  the 
following  scheme  noting  the  first  two  lines  of  The 
Canterbury  Prologue : 


I 

) 

2 

A 

3A 

4 

A 

A5 

If  t 

Whan  that 

t  r 

A  -prill  - 

0        » 

\>  r 

e    with 

t  r 

hise  shour  - 

es   swoot  -  e 

Thedroghte 

t  r 

of  March 

t  r 

hath  perc  - 

f  r 

ed     to 

the   root  -  e. 

Chaucer's  Final  E.  169 

The  reader  may  catch  very  nearly  the  exact  sound  of 
this  e  which  terminates  so  many  of  Chaucer's  lines  by 
getting  any  intelligent  Frenchman  to  read  aloud  a 
French  poem  and  observing  a  certain  sound  of  the  final 
es  which,  though  mute  in  prose,  the  French  retain  as  a 
syllable  in  poetry.  It  will  be  observed  that  this  sound 
is  often  scarcely  more  than  that  remission  of  breath 
with  which  one  relieves  the  lung  when,  in  speaking,  the 
words  end  before  the  breath  is  expended  which  has  been 
accumulated  in  the  lung  for  the  purposes  of  utterance. 
When  an  American,  in  impatiently  trying  to  remember 
a  word  in  the  midst  of  discourse  says,  for  example,  "  I 
was  walking  down  the -eh  —  the -eh  —  the  Hofsstrasse 
when  I  met  &c.,"  the  etis  have  almost  the  sound  of 
the  French  e  and  are  often  indeed  a  mere  remission  of 
breath  to  relieve  the  lung.  It  would  seem  that  such  a 
necessity  in  some  way  suggests  that  shape  of  the  buccal 
cavity  which  results  in  the  tone-color  of  the  French 
mute  e  as  given  when  rather  slurred  in  reading  French 
poetry :  a  tone-color  perhaps  better  represented  by  the 
sound  of  our  short  u  in  "but,"  somewhat  finically  pro- 
nounced, than  any  other  in  our  language. 

Now,  that  this  final  e  at  the  end  of  Chaucer's  lines 
was  mainly  a  sort  of  audible  remission  of  the  breath 
having  the  rhythmical  effect  noted  in  the  last  scheme 
from  Chaucer  seems  to  be  clearly  the  result  of  the 
following  considerations : 

(i)  that  Chaucer  evidently  did  not  intend  this  final  e 
at  the  end  of  each  line  to  have  the  full  force  of  a  sylla- 
ble, else  he  would  have  used  more  of  other  terminations 
than  e  in  the  same  place :  or  in  other  words  his  ten- 
dency to  confine  the  sound  to  that  of  the  final  <?,  which 
was  already  becoming  a  sound  that  could  be  slurred  at 


1 70  Science  of  English   Verse. 

pleasure,1  shows  a  peculiarity  in  that  sound  which  must 
have  suited  his  rhythmic  purpose ; 

(2)  that  this  rhythmic  purpose  did  not  demand  a  full 
syllable  at  the  end  of  the  bar,  as  shown  by  the  large 
numbers  of   such    lines  as    the  four  quoted   from    the 
Knight's  Tale  which  have  no  final  e ; 

(3)  that    the    pronunciation    and    rhythmical    effect 
herein  given  harmonize  all  these  kinds  of  lines,  for  the 
lines  not  terminating  in  a  final  e  would  admit  a  similar 
audible  remission  of  the  breath,  —  as  we  hear  it  used 
by  many  readers  of  the  present  day  ; 

(4)  that  thus  the  original  rhythmic  intent  would  be 
consistently  carried  out  in  every  line,  and  would  reveal 
itself  as  merely  a  sort  of  reminiscence  of  the  final  bar 
in  each  line  of  Anglo-Saxon  poetry  and  particularly  in 
each  line  of  Piers  Plowman. 

Coming  down  from  Chaucer,  and  skipping  the  I5th 
century  during  which,  if  one  excepts  a  few  passages  of 
Lydgate  and  Gower,  no  English  poetry  was  made  except 
among  the  Scotch  makers  —  who  however  carry  out  the 
3-rhythm  modus  without  exception  —  the  following  very 
striking  ballad,  which  belongs  to  the  early  part  of  the 
i6th  century  and  which  I  find  among  the  Bright  Ms. 
published  by  the  Shakspere  Society  in  1848,  gives  us 
the  genuine  old  Anglo-Saxon  rhythmus  of  the  two  forms 

a  £  y  y  I  U  with  almost  a  typic  regularity 
of  alternation.  I  give  the  scheme  of  the  first  two  lines 
and. then  the  poem  nearly  entire. 

1  As  seems  to  be  the  net  conclusion  resulting  from  the  careful  and 
scholarly  labors  of  Mr.  Ellis  and  Professor  Child  with  regard  to  the  gen- 
eral use  of  the  final  e  in  Chaucer.  See  Part  II,  Early  English  Pronun- 
ciation, by  Mr.  A.  J.  Ellis  (published  by  both  the  Chaucer  and  New 
Shakspere  Societies),  which  contains  an  admirable  summary  of  Professor 
Child's  paper  on  this  subject. 


Ev   -  er        in 


iv  -  er        in 


ULJ 

graf-  fyng  and 


plow-ing   and 


'  anct 

N 

?z/£r.              1  7  1 

t 

t 

5 

La*  •• 

nev  - 

er 

in 

grow-ing, 

t 

nev  - 

c 

er 

P 

in 

sow-  ing. 

SONG   OF    EVER   AND    NEVER. 


Ever  in  graffyng  and  never  in  growing, 
Ever  in  plowing  and  never  in  sowing, 
Ever  in  repyng  and  never  in  mowinge, 
Ever  in  trowing  and  never  in  knowinge. 

Ever  full  gorged,  and  never  from x  tappynge, 
Ever  at  sylence  and  never  from  clappynge, 
Ever  a-cold  and  never  from  wrappynge 
Ever  in  hoping  and  never  in  happyng. 

Ever  in  travell 2  and  never  at  byrth, 
Ever  in  smylyng  and  never  in  myrth, 
Ever  in  swellyng  and  never  slack  gyrth, 
Ever  in  purchace  and  never  ought  worth. 

Ever  at  hand  and  never  at  wyll,3 
Ever  styk  fast  and  never  stand  styll, 
Ever  cum  toward  and  never  cum  tyll,* 
Ever  a  clarke  and  never  can  skyll. 

Syns  ever  and  never  shall  never  have  end, 
Good  is  it  ever  never  to  offend ; 
For  ever  shall  never  kepe  fawtes  in  safe  mend 
But  ever  shall  scourge  fawtes  that  never  amend. 

"  From,"  in  the  sense  of  away  front;  "  never  from  tappynge"  =  never  free  from  the 
necessity  of  tapping,  that  is,  always  at  it. 
1  Travail. 
»  Pleasure  (for  example)  ever  near  by  (at  hand)  but  never  quite  reachable  (at  will). 


172 


Science  of  English   Verse. 


Coming  from  the  early  part  of  the  i6th  century  to  the 
early  part  of  the  i/th:  if  we  take  the  following  four 
lines  from  Hamlet  we  will  be  presented  not  only  with  a 
further  illustration  of  3-rhythm  but  with  an  interesting 
illustration  of  the  survival  through  our  blank  verse  of 

Q  A 

the  end-bar  form  in  final  e  —  Y.    •     9  '  *      — Just  now 

discussed  in  Chaucer.  Such  lines  occur  with  great  fre- 
quency in  Shakspere,  and  with  the  greatest  frequency 
in  Fletcher.1  On  comparing  the  final  bars  in  each  line 
of  the  following  scheme  of  the  opening  lines  in  the 
Hamlet  soliloquy  with  that  just  given  of  the  opening 
lines  in  the  Canterbury  Tales  Prologue,  we  may  see 
the  historic  connection  and  rhythmic  reason  of  the 
so-called  "double-ending"  or  " feminine-ending"  lines 
in  Shakspere  which  have  in  modern  times  acquired  so 
much  interest,  not  only  as  affording  another  rhythmic 
test  of  his  growth  as  an  artist  but  as  offering  means  for 
nice  discrimination  between  Shakspere's  and  Fletcher's 
parts  (for  instance)  in  the  play  of  Henry  VIII.,  or  that 
of  the  Two  Noble  Kinsmen.2 

SCHEME   FROM   HAMLET'S   SOLILOQUY. 


>               A 

A 

A 

A 

A 

It  r 

t  r 

t  r 

c  r 

f        Lj* 

To    be 

or    not 

to     be 

that      is 

the  question  : 

A 

A 

A 

A 

r  c 

Wheth-er 

'tis    no    - 

t  r 

bier    in 

t  r 

the    mind 

t  LJ 

to     suf  -  fer 

1  But  Fletcher  uses  them  very  differently  from  Shakspere.  See  spe- 
cial treatment  of  blank  verse,  end  of  this  chapter. 

3  For  interesting  discussions  of  both  plays  from  this  and  similar  points 
of  view,  see  Transactions  of  the  New  Shakspere  Society  for  1874,  series  I. 


Scheme  of  Hamlet's  Soliloquy.  173 


A 

A 

A 

A 

A 

C  r 

£      f 

C  f 

c  r 

£   C-d* 

The  slings 

and    ar 

rows   of 

out  -    ra 

geous  for-tune  ; 

A 

A 

A 

A 

r  c 

c  r 

f  r 

c  r 

y* 

Or      to 

take  arms 

a  -  gainst 

a       sea 

es. 

In  connection  with  this  scheme  it  may  be  remarked 
once  for  all  that  in  reading-off  every  such  notation  of 
lines  from  an  acting-play,  it  must  always  be  remembered 
that  the  long  pauses  and  stage-silences  which  occur  in 
stage-delivery  —  especially  in  the  stage-delivery  of  such 
a  soliloquy  as  this  of  Hamlet's  —  will  necessarily  inter- 
rupt the  continuity  of  the  movement,  and  that  the 
scheme  can  therefore  only  claim  to  be  a  scheme  of  that 
rhythmic  intention  upon  which  the  writer  projected  his 
work  and  which  in  its  general  type  only  is  carried  in  the 
hearer's  mind  throughout  the  progress  of  the  play.  For 
example:  after  the  word  "question"  at  the  end  of  the 
first  line  in  the  foregoing  soliloquy  the  actor  would 
doubtless  be  silent  for  some  time,  in  the  meditative 
blank  of  thought  which  suits  Hamlet's  unquiet  leaping 
from  one  idea  to  another  here ;  but  in  the  rhythmic 
intention  this  line  is  run-on  to  the  next,  and  artfully 
run-on,  the  unaccented  syllable  "-tion  "  of  "question" 
allowing  an  effective  change  of  the  accent  to  the  first 
sound  of  "  whether  "  in  the  next  line. 

The  four  lines  just  given  present  an  unusual  example 
of  the  occurrence  of  double-endings  four  times  in  'suc- 
cession. 

Passing  Milton  with  the  single  remark  that  Paradise 
Lost  is  written  in  the  same  typic  form  of  3-rhythm  with 
Shakspere's  plays ;  and  giving  a  scheme  of  only  the 
first  line  of  Endymion  because  it  presents  us  with  an- 


174 


Science  of  English   Verse. 


other  instance  of  the  double-ending  in  blank  verse  just 
discussed, 

~  A  A          I  A          I  A  A 


•  r 

of    beau  - 


£ 

for  -  ev  -  er 


8C    f 

A   thing          of    beau  -      ty       is  a      joy 

we  may  come  to  Poe's  Raven  which  offers  a  new  treat- 
ment of  3-rhythm  so  far  as  metre  (or  the  line-group)  is 
concerned,  but  consists  entirely  of  the  form  so  familiar 


O       0 

in  Anglo-Saxon  poetry,        f 


gr  t 

Once  up 

&  I       X 
O-ver 


r  t 


'  t 

mid-night 


r  t  r  •  r  t  r  c  r 


drear-y 


while  I 


pon-der'd 


weak  and 


man-y  a 


quaint  and 


r  • 

vol-ume 


of  for- 


r  t  r 


wear-y 
i 


got-ten 


lore. 


The  Idylls  of  the  King  is  in  the  typic  form  of  3-rhythm 
which  is  specially  named  blank  verse ;  though  the 
special  treatment  of  it  is  such  as  to  make  a  wholly 
different  music  from  Shakspere's. 

Longfellow's  Psalm  of  Life  is  in  the  same  form  of 
3-rhythm  as  Poe's  Raven  up  to  the  management  of  the 
line-group,  which  is  quite  different : 

r    t     r    t 

num    -    bers 


r 

I 

r 

? 

Tell 

me 

not 

in 

r 

5 

r 

t 

Life 

is 

but 

an 

mourn     -    ful 

r    t 

emp     -     ty 

Emerson's  Brahma  is  in  a  different  form  of  3-rhythm : 


r 

dream. 


y    r 

When     me 


r 


they        fly, 


r 


the 


A 

f 

wings. 


Schemes  from  Swinburne's  Atalanta  in  Calydon,  and 
Morris's  Love  Is  Enough,  all  illustrating  the  unbroken 


Five  Battle -Songs  in  3- Rhythm.         175 

employment  of  some  form  of  3-rhythm,  have  been 
already  given. 

So  that  we  find  the  English  love  for  3-rhythm  not 
only  unabating  after  more  than  twelve  hundred  years' 
use  of  it,  but  the  most  modern  English  verse  tending 
into  the  very  specific  forms  of  3-rhythm  used  by  our 
earliest  ancestral  poets. 

As  exhibiting  not  only  the  strength  of  our  passion 
for  3-rhythm  but  the  subtle  tenacity  with  which  even 
specific  forms  of  it  have  associated  themselves  with 
certain  classes  of  poetic  ideas,  perhaps  the  following 
five  poems  may  fitly  terminate  this  brief  review  of  our 
rhythmic  history.  I  have  selected  out  of  the  body  of 
English  poetry  five  battle-songs,  written  at  intervals  of 
three  centuries  apart,  namely :  a  scene  from  The  Fight 
at  Finncsbnrg,  dating  before  the  /th  century ;  a  battle- 
scene  from  the  Death  of  ByrhtnotJi,  loth  century ;  a 
battle-scene  from  Layamon's  Brut,  I3th  century;  a 
battle-ballad  of  Agincourt,  i6th  century ;  and  Tenny- 
son's Charge  of  the  Light  Brigade,  iQth  century.  Surely 
no  one  can  regard  without  interest  this  succession  of 
manful  songs,  all  moving  in  exactly  the  same  verse-beat 
and  carrying  us  on  their  rhythmic  movement,  by  three- 
century  leaps,  through  twelve  centuries  of  English 
verse. 

SONG   OF   THE    FIGHT   AT   FINNESBURG. 
Typic  scheme. 


3  r 

8  1 

Ban 

t 

•  helm 

r 

bers 

t 

•  tan 

t 

burh 

I 

-thel 

t 

•  u 

J 
dyn  - 

t 

ed 

t 

-   e. 

Hleothrode  tha  heathogeong  cyning : 

"  Ne  this  ne  dagath  eastan,  ne  her  draca  ne  fleogeth, 


176  Science  of  English   Verse. 

ne  her  thisse  healle  horn  naes  ne  byrnath ; 
fugelas  singath, 

gylleth  graeg-hama,  guth-wudu  hlynneth, 
scyld  scefte  oncwyth ;  nu  scyneth  thes  mona 
Wathol  under  wolcnum,  nu  ariseth  wae-daeda 
the  thisse  folces  nith  fremman  willeth  ; 
Ac  onwacingath  nu,  wigend  mine, 
habbath  eowre  land,  hicgeath  on  ellen, 
Winnath  on  orde,  wesath  anmode. 

Tha  araes  manig 

gold-hroden  thegn,  gyrde  him  his  swurde. 

Tha  wees  on  healle  wael-slihta  gehlyn, 

sceolde  nalaes  bord  genumen  handa, 

ban-helm  berstan,  burh-thelu  dynede, 

oth  aet  thaere  guthe  Garulf  gecrang, 

ealra  aerest  eorth-buendra, 

Guthlafes  sunu  ;  ymb  hyne  godra  fela  hwearf 

lathra  hraew ;  hraefen  wandrede, 

sweart  and  sealo-brun ;  swurd-leoma  stod 

swylce  eal  Finns  burh  fyrene  waere. 

Hig  fuhton  fif  dagas,  swa  hyra  nan  ne  feol 
driht-gesitha ;  ac  hig  tha  duru  heoldon.1 

1  Cried  aloud,  then,  war-young  king  •,  "  this  dawneth  not  from  east,  nor 
here  dragon  flieth,  nor  here  of  this  hall  light  burneth ;  birds  sing,  chirpeth 
cricket,  war-wood  soundeth,  shield  answereth  shaft ;  now  shineth  the  moon 
wandering  under  skies,  now  arise  woe-deeds  that  this  folk's  quarrel  will 
perform.  But  wake  ye  now,  warriors  mine !  hold  your  lands,  think  upon 
valor,  strive  in  battle-line,  be  one-minded."  .  .  .  Then  arose  many  a  gold- 
adorned  thane,  girded  him  with  his  sword.  .  .  .  Then  was  in  the  hall 
slaughter's  din,  might  not  shield  be  taken  in  hand,  bone-helm  burst,  house- 
floor  dinned,  until  in  the  fight  Garulf  fell  soonest  of  all  earth-dwellers, 
Guthlaf's  son;  about  him  a  crowd  of  many  good  foes'  corpses;  raven 
wandered,  swart  and  sallow-brown ;  sword-light  stood,  as  if  all  Finn's 
burgh  were  a-fire.  .  .  .  They  fought  five  days,  so  none  of  the  companions 
fell ;  but  they  held  the  door.  .  .  . 


Scheme  from  The  Death  of  Byrhtnoth.    177 


BATTLE-SCENE  FROM  THE  DEATH  OF  BYRHT- 
NOTH. 


Typic  scheme. 


IP  p  p 

r    p    P  p  p 

r    P 

(Hi)let  -  on   tha  of 

fol  -   mum 

feol  -  heard  -  e 

spear  -    u    - 

'-.    i    p 

ge 

, 

p  p  p    r   P 

grand  -  en    -  e            gar    -   as 

fleo  -    gan; 

cm 

bo-gan  waer-on 

P     P     P 

by  -    sig   -   e, 

P    P    P 

bord    ord     on  - 

r    •• 

feng, 

Ejf  f  J 

£  u   P 

r   P  P  P  n 

bit  -erwaesse 

bead  -  u  -  raes, 

beor  -  nas       feol-  Ion,    on  ge 

hwaeth  -  er    -   e 

r    i 

hand 

r    P    r    P 

hys    -     sas          la     -     gon. 

(tha)Byrht  -  noth 

r     •• 

braed 

.^M^B 

f     p    r     p 

bill             of        sceath           e 

r   P    P  P  ==•    r    p 

brad      and        brun  -  ecg    and  on  tha      byrn  -    an 

sloh  :      to 

r    - 

sum, 

p  p  p  fed*   r   P   r   n 

hrath  -  e      hi  -  ne  ge    -      let    -    te         lid      mann-a 

P    P    P 

tha       he    thaes 

P     P     P 

feoll      tha       to 

r,    P 

eorl    -     es 

r    p 

fold    -  an 

r    P    r    P 

earm         a      -    myrd    -    e; 

P   P   P   P 

feal  -  o  -  hilt  -  e 

r    P 

swurd  :   ne 

P    P    b 

miht  -  e        he 

ge   -    heald   -    an         heard    -    ne 

r    P 

mec    -     e, 

1  Probably  a  word  omitted  in  the  MS. 


178 


Science  of  English   Verse. 


r    c    r    c 


waep    -   nes 


weald    -    an. 


r    c 

r    c 

;  c 

s 

£    t    t 

(tha)hin     -     e 

heow    -    on       he 

eth  -  en   - 

e 

scealc  -  as,      and 

c  •  c 

C    C    { 

'  i  C 

V     V 

r    r    t 

beg  -  en       tha 

beorn  -  as       the  hi  -  ne 

big      -      stod    -  on, 

t    t    t 

V         V         V 

r 

* 

V        V       V 

JE\t  -  noth     and 

Wulf-maer      be 

weg 

-  en 

lag  -  on  tha  o- 

nemn      hyr    -    a 


r     r 


, 

frean  feorh          ge     -    seald    -      on.1 


r     c 


BATTLE-SCENE   FROM    LAYAMON'S    BRUT. 


Typic  scheme. 


Hard  -  lich  -  e 


r 

hew    - 


en,       helm  -  e       ther 


gull    -    en. 


Togadere  heo  tuhten  and  lothlice  fuhten ; 
hardliche  hewen,  helme  ther  gullen, 
starcliche  to-stopen  mid  steles  egge. 
Alle  daei  ther  ilasste  faeht  mid  tham  maeste, 

1  "  They  let  fly  from  their  hands  the  file-hard  spears,  the  sharp-ground  javelins;  bows 
were  busy,  brand  met  buckler,  bitter  was  the  battle-rush,  warriors  fell,  on  every  hand  men 
lay." 

(The  battle  goes  on:  after  a  while  Byrhtnoth,  now  in  bad  condition,  is  striking  at  a 
pirate  who  has  run  over  to  rob  a  fallen  chieftain  of  his  gold  rings  and  bracelets.) 

"  Then  Byrhtnoth  drew  from  sheath  his  sword,  broad  and  brown-bladed,  and  smote  on 
his  (the  pirate's)  corselet:  but  one  of  the  pirates  too  quickly  hindered  him,  and  maimed 
the  chieftain's  arm;  fell  then  to  earth  (his)  yellow-hilled  sword,  he  might  no  longer  hold  the 
brand,  (he  might  no  longer)  wield  weapon."  .  .  . 

(Byrhtnoth  is  surrounded:  he  calls  over  to  his  men  from  the  midst  of  his  enemies, 
speaks  a  few  cheerful  words,  offers  up  a  short  manful  prayer  to  heaven;  and  then) 

"  The  heathen  hewed  him  to  pieces  and  both  the  warriors  that  stood  by  him.  ^Glfnod 
and  Wulfmaer  lay  together:  by  the  side  of  their  prince  they  gave  up  their  life." 


Schemes  from  The  Brut,  and  Agincourt.   1 79 

a  thet  thustere  niht  to-daelde  heore  muchele  fiht. 
Laeien  a  ba  halve  cnihtes  to-hewen. 

Ther  was  muchel  blod  gute  ;  balu  ther  wes  rive ; 
brustlede  scaeftes,  beornes  ther  veollen.1 

THE    BALLAD    OF    AGINCOURT,   OR   THE    ENGLISH 
BOWMAN'S    GLORY.8 

Typical  scheme. 

§C   t   t     t   t   t     t   t   t     t  t  t 


A  -  gin  -  court, 


A  -   gin-court !  Know  ye      not 


A  -  gin-court? 


Agincourt,  Agincourt ! 
Know  ye  not  Agincourt  ? 
Where  English  slue  and  hurt 

All  their  French  loemen  ? 
With  our  pikes  and  bills  brown, 
How  the  French  were  beat  downe, 

Shot  by  our  bowmen. 

Agincourt,  Agincourt ! 
Know  ye  not  Agincourt, 
Never  to  be  forgot 

Or  known  to  no  man  ? 
When  English  cloth-yard  arrows 
Kill'd  the  French  like  tame  sparrows, 

Slain  by  our  bowmen. 

Agincourt,  Agincourt ! 
Know  ye  not  Agincourt, 
Where  we  won  field  and  fort  ? 

1  Together  they  came  and  bitterly  fought ;  hardly  hewed,  helms  there 
resounded,  starkly  to-stepped  against  steel's  edge.  All  day  there  lasted 
fight  amid  the  wood,  until  darkening  night  brought-to  their  muckle  fight. 
Lay  about  knights  in  half  to-hewn. 

There  was  muckle  blood ;  bale  there  was  rife ;  bristled  shaft,  men  there 
fell. 

*  See  Appendix  to  Vol.  II.,  Messrs.  Hales  &  Furnivall's  Bishop  Percy's 
Folio  Manuscript:  p.  595. 


180  Science  of  English   Verse. 

French  fled  like  women 
By  land  and  eke  by  water ; 
Never  was  seen  such  slaughter 

Made  by  our  bowmen. 

Agincourt,  Agincourt ! 
Know  ye  not  Agincourt  ? 
English  of  every  sort, 

High  men  and  low  men, 
Fought  that  day  wondrous  well  as 
All  our  old  stories  tell  us, 

Thanks  to  our  bowmen. 

Agincourt,  Agincourt ! 
Know  ye  not  Agincourt  ? 
Either  tale  or  report 

Quickly  will  show  men 
What  can  be  done  by  courage, 
Men  without  food  or  forage, 

Still  lusty  bowmen. 

Agincourt,  Agincourt ! 
Know  ye  not  Agincourt? 
Where  such  a  fight  was  fought 

As,  when  they  grow  men, 
Our  boys  shall  imitate, 
Nor  need  we  long  to  waite ; 

They'll  be  good  bowmen. 

Agincourt,  Agincourt ! 
Know  ye  not  Agincourt, 
Where  our  fifth  Harry  taught 

Frenchmen  to  know  men  ? 
And  when  the  day  was  done 
Thousands  there  fell  to  one 

Good  English  bowman. 

Agincourt,  Agincourt ! 
Huzza  for  Agincourt ! 
When  that  day  is  forgot 


Agincourt  y  and  Tenny sorts  Song.        181 

There  will  be  no  men. 
It  was  a  day  of  glory, 
And  till  our  heads  are  hoary, 

Praise  we  our  bowmen. 

Agincourt,  Agincourt, 
Know  ye  not  Agincourt? 
When  our  best  hopes  were  nought, 

Tenfold  our  foemen, 
Harry  led  his  men  to  battle, 
Slue  the  French  like  sheep  and  cattle  : 

Huzza  our  bowmen. 

Agincourt,  Agincourt ! 
Know  ye  not  Agincourt  ? 
O,  it  was  noble  sport ! 

Then  did  we  owe  men : 
Men  who  a  victory  won  us 
'Gainst  any  odds  among  us : 

Such  were  our  bowmen. 

Agincourt,  Agincourt ! 
Know  ye  not  Agincourt  ? 
Dear  was  the  victory  bought 

By  fifty  yeomen. 
Ask  any  English  wench, 
They  were  worth  all  the  French ; 

Rare  English  women.1 

The  rhythm  of  our  last  battle-song,  The  Charge  of 
the  Light  Brigade,  has  already  been  illustrated  with  a 
partial  scheme,  so  that  it  will  not  here  be  necessary  to 
give  more  than  a  reference  to  that,  —  for  the  purpose 
of  illustrating  how  finely  Tennyson  has  carried-on  the 
ancient  battle-rhythmus  of  the  fathers,  —  and  to  cite 
the  reader  to  the  poem  itself  for  further  comparison. 

1  Collier  changes  this  "women"  to  "bowmen." 


1 82  Science  of  English   Verse. 


CHARGE   OF   THE   LIGHT   BRIGADE. 


Half 
All 

C    C 

a    leag 

c  c 

in    the 

lie 

half 

d 

a 

\ 

league 

6 

half 

c 

rode 

*  c 

a   league 

P       X 
the    six 

r 

on 
hun 

t 

-  ward 

c 

-  dred. 

c  c 

val  -  le} 

r  of 

death 

BLANK  VERSE,  OR  THE  ENGLISH  HEROIC  RHYTH- 

MUS. 

Blank  verse  —  as  has  been  already  stated  in  another 
connection  —  means,  in  its  primary  sense,  any  verse 
which  does  not  rhyme  ;  but  the  term  has  come  to  be  ap- 
plied to  a  particular  sort  of  verse  which  does  not  rhyme, 


five 


3  A 

^mw.j,       j-.mjm.n        W.L       mv,        Viv^        j.^mx     Q         f  0 

such  bars  constituting  the  line-group. 

It  is  often  called,  also,  the  English  "  heroic  measure," 
because  the  great  English  poems  have  been  written  in 
it, — poems  which  though  not  strictly  "heroic,"  bear 
the  same  relation  to  our  body  of  literature  which  the 
strictly  heroic  poems  of  other  languages  bear  to  theirs. 

Although  both  these  terms — "blank  verse,"  and 
"  heroic  measure  " — have  acquired  such  currency  that 
they  are  useful,  the  student  will  find  it  profitable  to  re- 
member always,  in  using  them  or  hearing  them  : 

(1)  that  English  verse  was  mainly  blank1  —  that  is, 
unrhymed — for  about  the  first  five  hundred  years  of  its 
existence : 

(2)  that  all  the  essential  rhythmus  of  blank  verse  is 
found   in   Chaucer  (as  heretofore  explained),  and  that 
when  Surrey  is  called  the  father  of  blank  verse  on  ac- 

1  See  the  rhyming  poem  in  Part  III.,  and  occasional  rhymes  in  other  poems. 


Ancient  and  Modern  Heroic  Measure.    183 

count  of  his  employment  of  it  in  his  partial  translation 
of  the  ^Eneid,  all  that  can  be  meant  is  that  he  disused 
rhyme  in  a  rhythm  which  was  well-known  ; 

(3)  that  the  term  "  English  heroic  measure "  as  ap- 
plied to  blank  verse  can  apply  only  to  our  poetry  since 
Chaucer :  before  whom,  for  several  centuries,  the 
English  heroic  measure  was  a  very  different  form  of 
3-rhythm,  namely,  the  form  seen  in  the  schemes  already 
given  from  the  Anglo-Saxon  poem  The  Battle  of  Maldon, 

I  2 

f       P     ,  in  which  the  form  I  alternates 

with  2,  and  both  are  often  replaced  by  bars  of  the  forms 
or  o  |  ,or  other  similar  varieties, 
while  the  overwhelmingly  prevalent  bar  in  the  modern 


that  moreover  the  for- 


,  .  .      Q  A 

heroic  measure  is  £    •     0 

mcr  was  nearly  always  used  in  line-groups  of  four  bars * 
to  the  line,  while  the  latter  has  always  five  bars  to  the 
line ;  and  that  in  view  of  these  differences  it  would  be 
at  least  an  intelligent  discrimination  to  use  two  terms, 
—  "  ancient  heroic  measure  "  and  "  modern  heroic  meas- 
ure,"—  the  ancient  including  our  verse  from  Caedmon 
to  Langland  inclusive,  and  the  modern  beginning  with 
Chaucer  who  in  the  Canterbury  Talcs  uses  the  modern 
heroic  measure  with  rhyme  while  Surrey  used  it  without 
rhyme. 

There  are  two  circumstances  which  give  such  impor- 
tance to  the  form  of  rhythm  just  described  as  blank 
verse,  or  the  modern  heroic  measure,  that  it  must  claim 

1  Sometimes  an  arrangement  of  six  bars  to  the  line  is  evident :  and 
sometimes  the  intention  is  not  clear  :  but  the  texts  are  often  not  reliable, 
from  various  causes. 


184  Science  of  English   Verse. 

special  study  in  the  science  of  English  verse.  These 
circumstances  are  as  follows. 

(1)  From  any  stand-point  commanding  a  large  view, 
one  may  almost  say  that  English  poetry  since  Chaucer 
has  been  written  in  this  form.     Gorboduc  (or  Ferrex  and 
Porrex),  the  first  English  tragedy  ;  Shakspere's  Plays, 
Marlowe's,  the  English  drama,  nearly;  Milton's  Paradise 
Cycle,  Keats's  Endymion,  Wordsworth's  Excursion,  Ten- 
nyson's Arthurian  Cycle  ;  are  in  blank  verse.    And  if  we 
should  add  to  these  the  great  poems  which  have  been 
written  in  the  same  form  with  the  addition  of  rhyme  — 
which  we  might  well  do,  from  a  rhythmic  point  of  view, 
since  the  rhyme  really  does  not  affect  the  rhythm  of 
blank  verse  in  any  other  way  than  to  give  the  ear  one 
more  series  of  rhythmic  co-ordinations,  thus  making  the 
tissue  of  rhythm  merely  richer,  but  no  whit  different  in 
fibre  —  we  could  increase  this  list  with  Chaucer's  Can- 
terbury    Tales;    several    of    Chaucer's    short    poems; 
Spenser's  Fairy  Queen;  the  Scotch  poetry  of  the  late 
I5th  and  early  i6th  centuries;  all  the  infinite  treasure 
of    English    sonnets  —  Surrey's,    Wyatt's,    Constable's, 
Griffin's,     Daniel's,     Drayton's,     Watson's,     Sidney's, 
Drummond's,     Habington's,     Spenser's,     Shakspere's, 
Carew's,  Wordsworth's,  Keats's,  Mrs.  Browning's,  Gil- 
der's ;  and  a  large  number  of  shorter  poems  and  songs. 
In  short,  one  may  say  that  the  corptis  of  English  poe- 
try since  the  last  quarter  of  the  I4th  century  is  written 
in  this  form. 

(2)  Being  thus    generally   the   rhythmic   genius    of 

o  A 

modern  English  poetry,  the  form  x  •  0  has  ac- 
quired special  interest  in  quite  recent  times  through 
certain  pecliarities  of  it  which  have  been  revealed  by 


Metrical  Tests  of  Shakspere.  185 

the  analysis  of  Shakspere's  verse  and  which  appear  to 
characterize  periods  of  his  life  and  artistic  growth  in 
such  a  way  as  to  afford  a  basis  for- an  arrangement  of 
his  plays  in  the  order  in  which  they  were  written,  —  or 
at  least  in  such  a  way  as  to  afford  a  most  valuable  sys- 
tem of  tests  and  counter-checks  to  arrangements  based 
upon  other  evidences. 

These  two  considerations  taken  together  suggest  that 
our  special  treatment  of  blank  verse  may  be  made  more 
interesting  than  if  it  were  a  purely  formal  discussion  by 
grouping  all  the  phenomena  of  this  form  about  the 
characteristic  methods  in  which  Shakspere  used  it. 
Such  a  treatment  need  be,  indeed,  no  less  than  exhaus- 
tive. For  Shakspere's  art  in  the  management  of  blank 
verse  was  truly  miraculous,  and  there  is  perhaps  no 
technical  possibility  of  music  in  this  form  which  may 
not  be  illustrated  from  his  writings.  Of  course,  to  dis- 
cuss all  these  possibilities  as  they  appear  in  Shakspere 
would  alone  require  a  monograph  quite  as  large  as  the 
present  volume ;  and,  inasmuch  as  the  principles  already 
stated  should  now  enable  every  student  to  interpret  all 
the  plainer  secrets  of  Shakspere's  art  without  difficulty, 
the  present  treatment  may  be  confined  to  (i)  those 
points  about  which  the  most  remarkable  misconceptions 
have  been  entertained  and  (2)  those  which  have  fur- 
nished material  for  the  tests  of  chronology  just  now 
mentioned. 

These  points  may  all  be  comprised  under  the  follow- 
ing heads : 

Shakspere's  use  of  the  rest  in  blank  verse ; 

the  run-on 


5         the  run-on         ~\ 
and  end-stopped    >•    "       " 
line  ) 


1 86  Science  of  English   Verse. 

(  the  double-ending  ~\ 
Shakspere's  use  of  \  or  feminine-ending  >-  in  blank  verse ; 

(  line  ) 

"  "  (  the  weak-ending  >  "  "  " 

1  line  \ 

"  "  the  rhythmic  accent  "  "  " 

SHAKSPERE'S    USE   OF   THE    REST. 

Nothing  can  be  more  remarkable  than  the  confidence 
with  which  English  nursery-songs  and  proverbial  expres- 
sions count  upon  the  rhythmic  perceptions  of  the  people, 
as  contrasted  with  the  timidity  of  minor  poets  and  the 
forgetful  ness  of  commentators  in  this  particular.  The 
most  complex  rhythms  of  our  language  —  the  rhythms 
which  rely  most  on  the  hearer's  or  reader's  ear  to 
replace  lacking  sounds  with  rests  of  the  right  time-value, 
to  make  one  sound  very  long  and  others  very  short,  to 
run-on  or  end-stop  the  lines,  and  the  like  —  are  to  be 
found  in  Mother  Goose  and  in  the  works  of  our  greatest 
poets.  It  is  in  the  verse  of  those  who  must  be  classed 
between  these  limits  that  we  find  those  rigid  and  inex- 
orable successions  of  iambus  to  iambus,  of  end-stopped 
line  to  end-stopped  line,  and  the  like,  which  betray 
either  the  writer's  fear  that  his  rhythmic  intention 
might  not  be  understood  or  the  limitations  of  his 
rhythmic  intention  itself. 

It  is  only  an  extension  of  the  same  remark  to  say  that 
music  is  almost  entirely  fearless  in  this  respect,  and  the 
rudest  music  almost  as  much  so  as  the  finest.  I  have 
heard  a  Southern  plantation  "hand,"  in  "patting  Juba" 
for  a  comrade  to  dance  by,  venture  upon  quite  complex 
successions  of  rhythm,  not  hesitating  to  syncopate,  to 
change  the  rhythmic  accent  for  a  moment,  or  to  indulge 
in  other  highly-specialized  variations  of  the  current 


Rests,  in  Mother  Goose.  187 

rhythmus.  Here  music,  let  it  be  carefully  observed,  is 
in  its  rudest  form,  consisting  of  rhythm  alone :  for  the 
patting  is  done  with  hands  and  feet,  and  of  course  no 
change  of  pitch  or  of  tone-color  is  possible. 

In  considering  Shakspere's  use  of  the  rest  we  shall 
find  these  facts  of  the  utmost  importance.  Approached 
from  the  direction  of  music  and  of  the  folk-song  or 
nursery-rhyme,  the  problems  which  have  been  explained 
sometimes  as  licenses,  sometimes  as  irregularities,  some- 
times as  faults  of  stupid  printers  in  wrongly  arranging 
the  lines,  sometimes  even  as  corruptions  of  the  text, 
will  mostly  be  seen  to  resolve  themselves  simply  into  a 
great  artist's  use  of  his  rhythmic  materials  with  a  free- 
dom founded  upon  the  rhythmic  practices  of  the  fathers 
and  the  rhythmic  perceptions  of  children  and  common 
people. 

A  single  illustration  from  Mother  Goose,  with  one 
from  the  negro's  patting,  will  supply  us  with  a  precisely- 
noted  formulation  of  the  facts  just  stated  which  we  can 
then  apply  in  the  analysis  of  Shakspere's  supposed 
peculiarities  in  this  particular. 

Let  any  one  listen  to  a  child  reciting  this  passage  out 
of  Mother  Goose : 

Is  John  Smith  within? 
Ay,  that  he  is. 
Can  he  set  a  shoe  ? 
Ay,  marry,  two. 
One  a  penny,  two  a  penny, 
Tick,  tack,  two. 

The  rhythmic  movement  of  the  child's  utterance  is  as 
follows  : 


i88 


Science  of  English   Verse. 


4  r 

8    9 

r 

0    * 

J" 

Is 

John 

Smith  with  - 

r 

p 

P 

Ay, 

that 

he 

P 

P     P 

P 

Can 

he      set 

a 

r 

P 

P 

Ay, 

mar    - 

ry, 

P 

P     P 

P 

. 

One 

a        pen 

-  ny, 

P 

1         f 

1 

Tick, 

tack, 

r       * 

in? 

r         x 


shoe  ? 

r      * 

two. 

p  p  p  p 

two       a        pen  -  ny, 

0  v 

two. 


An  examination  of  this  scheme  will  show  that  the 
child's  rhythmic  sense  has  here  arranged  a  series  of 
time-values,  both  for  sounds  and  silences  (rests),  which 
presents  considerable  complexity.  Let  the  student  ob- 
serve particularly  the  rests  which  have  been  supplied 
by  the  child  between  the  words,  and  upon  which  the 
whole  rhythm  depends. 

Here  we  see  a  rhythmic  intention  based  upon  the 
occurrence  of  rests  within  the  body  of  the  line.  These 
rests  happen  to  occur  on  unaccented  sounds  in  the  bar : 
but  it  is  important  to  notice  that  rests  may  occur  at  the 
place  where  the  accent  belongs,  and  that  this  is  fre- 
quently resorted-to  in  music  to  produce  striking  rhyth- 
mic effects.  To  take  an  example  from  the  most  culti- 
vated music  and  enforce  it  with  one  from  the  rudest 
form  of  that  art:  in  Haydn's  "Queen  of  France"  sym- 
phony the  slow  movement  has  a  flute  obligate  at  one 
point,  of  which  the  first  strain  commences  : 

*=        ^^^fS^ 


Rests,  in  the  Negro  s  Patting.  189 

while  the  second   strain   has  a  rest  at  every  accented 
point  of  the  bar  throughout,  each  bar  being  of  the  form 


-*-         --"-frf-  f- 


=*= 


On  the  other  hand,  every  one  who  has  noticed  a  South- 
ern negro's  "  patting  "  will  have  been  apt  to  hear  an 
effect  of  the  same  nature  as  in  Haydn's  movement, 
produced  by  omitting  the  stroke,  of  foot  or  of  hand, 
which  the  hearer  expects  to  fall  on  the  accented  note  at 
the  first  of  the  bar,  thus  : 

Allegro  vivace. 

1 1  t  t  t   ^  t  t  t   *  r   r  * 

and  similar  forms. 

These  instances  might  be  indefinitely  multiplied ; 
but  they  will  surely  suffice  here  to  authorize  us  in 
formulating  the  assertion  that : 

In  popular  poetry,  and  in  the  crudest  as  well  as  the 
most  refined  music,  a  rest  may  supply  a  sound  not  only 
in  the  body  of  the  line  or  phrase  but  even  on  the 
accented  place  of  the  bar. 

Now,  just  as  Haydn  uses  the  rhythmic  device  of 
the  negro,  so  Shakspere  uses  the  rhythmic  device  of  the 
nursery-rhyme.  Let  us  then  apply  the  principle  just 
formulated  to  the  interpretation  of  certain  lines  in 
Shakspere's  plays  which  have  been  accounted  for  very 
variously  by  various  commentators. 

The  following  line,  for  example  —  1 1 7,  in  Measure  for 
Measure,  Act  II.  Scene  2 —  has  occasioned  much  per- 
plexity : 

Than  the  soft  myrtle ;  but  man,  proud  man.1 

1  Delius  text;  same  in  the  first  folio. 


1 90  Science  of  English   Verse. 

Regarded  from  the  stand-point  of  well-known  pro- 
cedures in  music,  this  line  offers  no  difficulty.  If  we 
now  analyze  the  means  by  which  the  rhythmic  intention 
is  here  discovered  and  verified,  the  student  will  have  a 
mode  of  procedure  set  before  him  for  application  in  all 
future  cases  of  doubt ;  and  if  we  find  not  only  that  this 
rhythmic  intention  is  for  the  reader  to  supply  a  rest  in 
the  body  of  the  line,  but  that  many  of  Shakspere's  lines 
exhibit  a  similar  intention  for  the  purpose  of  producing 
a  clearly-defined  correspondence  between  ihythm  and 
idea,  it  may  surely  be  claimed  —  in  view  of  the  principle 
just  now  developed  —  that  Shakspere  is  simply  employ- 
ing the  common  rhythmic  devices  of  ruder  poetry  just 
as  Haydn  and  Beethoven  employ  those  of  ruder  music, 
and  that  it  is  as  incorrect  to  call  the  one  an  "irregu- 
larity "  or  a  "  license  "  as  it  would  be  to  call  the  other 
so. 

Our  analysis  may  be  comprehended  in  the  following 
four  propositions. 

(i)  The  accentual  construction  of  the  line 

Than  the  soft  myrtle  ;  but  man,  proud  man 

so  limits  its  possibilities  that  the  reader  is  forced  to 
supply  a  quarter-rest  immediately  after  the  syllable 
"-tie"  in  "myrtle,"  as  by  the  following  scheme : 


r 


Than    the 


r 


soft     myr     -  tie ; 


, 

but     man,  _  proud  man. 


(2)  This  suggestion    to   the  reader  is  instantly  con- 

1  The  familiar  Shaksperean  beginning  of  a  line  with   -     _  instead  of 

A  I      U 

the  typic  0    0  '•  presently  treated  in  full  under  the  head  of  Shakspere's 

U    I 
Use  of  the  Rhythmic  Accent. 


Rests,  in  Measure  for  Measure.         191 


firmed  by  the  fact  that  the  semicolon  —  which  is  a  logi- 
cal rest  —  appears  at  the  very  point  where  the  rhyth- 
mical rest  falls,  namely  just  after  the  "  -tie  "  in  "  myrtle." 

(3)  The  reader's  assurance  becomes  doubly  sure  when 
he  finds  that  the  context  shows  a  movement   of   idea 
which  is  strikingly  embodied  in  this  special  movement 
of  rhythm,  as  is  always  the  case  in  Shakspere. 

(4)  And  finally  investigation  reveals  that  it  is  really 
a  habit  with  Shakspere  to  intensify  just  such  antitheses 
as  occur  here  in  the  ideas  with  just  such  a  rest  to  be 
supplied  at  the  place  of  an  accented  note,  —  wherein, 
indeed,  he  only  carries  out   the  unconscious  habit  of 
every  ordinary  reader  or  speaker  of  English. 

To  examine  these  propositions  separately  : 
(i)  If  we   construct   the   scheme   of  a   typic  line  of 
blank  verse : 


r   t  r    t 


t  r   :  r 


and  apply  the  line  in  question  to  this  typic  scheme  as 
far  as  it  will  go,  being  guided  by  the  place  of  the  pro- 
nunciation accent,  or  of  the  logical  accent,  for  the  place 
of  the  rhythmic  accent,  we  find  that  the  only  note  left 
without  a  corresponding  word  is  the  note  occupying  the 
place  suggested  for  the  rest,  namely  that  after  "  -tie  "  in 
"  myrtle,"  thus : 


A 

Than    the 


A 

Lf 

proud  myr 


C 

-tie; 


r 


but 


r 

man, 


The  student  observes  that  in  thus  measuring  the  given 
line  by  the  type,  we  are  guided  by  the  accentual  con- 
struction, as  follows :  the  first  two  bars  and  a  third  fit 
exactly : 


Science  of  English   Verse. 


t  r 

Than  the 


c  r 


proud  myr        tie  ; 


r 


c  r 


c  r 


but,  if  we  should  go  on  with  the  sounds,  the  next  two 
accents  would  fall  upon  "  but "  and  "  proud  "  thus 


r 


Than  the 


r 


proud  myr 


r 


-  tie  ;     but 


f 


d 

man,  proud 


r 


in  which  the  "  but  man  proud  man  "  is  of  course  in- 
tolerable :  for  though  the  accent  can  occasionally  be 
reversed,  as  at  the  beginning  of  this  very  line,  or  occa- 
sionally placed  upon  unimportant  words  (as  presently 
explained),  this  is  always  done  with  a  light  hand,  and 
under  a  certain  artistic  guidance  of  the  ear  which  does 
not  allow  it  except  for  pleasing  variations  of  rhythm. 
Finding  therefore  that  the  accentual  construction  does 
not  allow  "but"  on  the  note  immediately  after  "-tie," 
we  try  the  next  note,  of  course,  and  finding  that  here 
the  "  but "  and  all  that  follows  it  fit  perfectly  to  the 
type: 


c  r 

Than  the 


c  r 

proud  myr 


t  r 

tie;     — 


c  r    c 


but    man, 


proud  man 


we  conclude  straightway  that  the  author's  rhythmic 
intention  was  for  a  rest  to  occupy  the  place  and  time  of 
the  typic  quarter-note  after  "-tie." 

This  rest  makes  the  line  perfectly  musical :  as  may 
be  strikingly  illustrated  by  inserting  an  actual  sound  in 
its  place.  For  example,  suppose  the  line  read  "  myrtle- 
tree"  instead  of  "myrtle  : "  if  we  apply  this  to  the  type, 
we  find  that  it  fits  exactly,  and  on  reading  it  aloud  it 
forms  a  perfect  line  of  blank  verse  : 


Expression  helped  by  Rests.  193 


A 


t  r 

Than  the 


, 

soft    myr 


A 


t  r 

-  tie  -  tree  ; 


, 

but    man, 


proud  man. 


The  rest,  however,  is  here  far  more  effective  than 
any  sound  could  be :  as  we  shall  presently  see  when  we 
consider  the  idea  Shakspere  is  dealing  with. 

(2)  This  position  of  the  rest  is  immediately  confirmed 
when  the  reader  observes  that  it  is  the  same  position 
with   that  of  the   semicolon.     The  semicolon   has   the 
same  relation  to  the  logic  of  the  sentence  that  the  rest 
has  to  the  rhythm  of  it. 

(3)  Along  with  these  two  considerations  straightway 
comes  a  third  which  supports  them  both,  namely  :  that 
the  expression  of  the  idea  involved  in  the   context  is 
heightened,  according  to  English  habits  of  utterance, 
by  just  such  a  rest.     The  speaker  is  drawing  a  sharp 
and  passionate  contrast  between  the  use  of  authority 
made  by  Jove,  or  Heaven,  and  that  made  of  it  by  man  ; 

Merciful  heaven  ! 

Thou  rather  with  thy  sharp  and  sulphurous  bolt 
Splitt'st  the  unwedgeable  and  gnarle"d  oak, 
Than  the  soft  myrtle;  but  man,  proud  man ! 
Dressed  in  a  little  brief  authority, 


Plays  such  fantastic  tricks  before  high  heaven 
As  make  the  angels  weep.     .    .    . 

It  is  Isabella,  in  the  extremity  of  love  and  terror, 
pleading  with  Angelo  for  her  brother's  life :  what  more 
natural,  or  more  striking,  than  the  momentary  pause, 
after  the  word  "  myrtle "  which  ends  the  description 
of  Heaven's  course,  before  showing,  like  as  not  with 
a  great  sob  at  the  very  place  of  the  rest,  and  in  a 
changed  voice  which  the  accented  rest  well  introduces, 
the  meaner  ways  of  man  ? 


1 94  Science  of  English   Verse. 

(4)  These  considerations  seem  to  reach  certainty 
when  we  find  that  in  the  same  act  of  the  same  play 
Shakspere  has  used  the  same  rhythmical  effect  —  name- 
ly, that  of  accentuating  a  silence  by  suggesting  a  rest 
in  the  place  of  an  accented  sound  —  fora  similar  pur- 
pose, namely,  to  heighten  the  current  idea.  This  is 
line  173,  already  commented  upon  in  another  connec- 
tion : 


r  r 

Who  would 


e  -  lieve 


A 


t  s 


me  ? 


r 


O     per  -  il  -  ous  mouths ! 


These  instances  could  easily  be  supplemented  with 
similar  ones,  all  showing  that  Shakspere,  just  like  the 
nursery-rhymer,  does  not  hesitate  at  a  rhythmic  inten- 
tion which  requires  a  rest  to  be  supplied  in  the  body  of 
the  line,  while,  far  in  advance  of  the  nursery-rhymer,  he 
uses  this  device  with  special  purpose,  where  he  desires 
that  the  rhythmic  dress  of  his  idea  should  not  flap 
about  its  body  but  clothe  it  with  absolute  fitness. 

It  is  instructive  to  note  that  this  line,  and  similar 
ones,  which  thus  readily  resolve  themselves  into  rhyth- 
mic proportion  when  approached  from  the  direction  of 
familiar  practices  in  popular  poetry  and  in  music,  have 
presented  such  insuperable  difficulty  to  those  who  have 
considered  them  with  other  preconceptions  that  a  cor- 
ruption of  the  text  has  been  deliberately  posited  as  the 
only  refuge  from  the  supposition  of  an  unconquerable 
defect  in  the  rhythm.  The  method  just  shown  of  deal- 
ing with  disputed  rhythms  —  by  first  constructing  a 
typic  line,  and  then  placing  all  the  certain  sounds  under 
their  proper  notes,  in  a  process  analogous  to  the  "ex- 
clusive diagnosis  "  of  the  physician  —  will  become  all 


Argument  against  Rests.  195 

the  more  valuable  to  the  student  if  we  consider  for  a 
moment  the  fundamental  error  underlying  the  argument 
of  those  who  have  abandoned  these  lines  as  irreducible 
to  any  rhythm. 

The  following  citation  from  Professor  Craik's  Eng- 
lish of  Shakspere*  concerning  the  line  just  now  dis- 
cussed, may  perhaps  fairly  be  taken  as  representative  of 
this  argument.  "So  much  cannot  be  said "  —  that  is, 
that  such  lines  are  not  "irregular"  or  strained  by 
"license"  —  " for  another  form  of  verse  (if  it  is  tc  be 
so  called)  which  has  also  been  supposed  to  be  found  in 
Shakspere  "  such  as  for  instance  "  the  well-known  line 
in  Measure  for  Measure  .  .  . 

'  Than  the  soft  myrtle ;  but  man,  proud  man.' 

This,  it  will  be  observed,  is  different  from  a  merely 
truncated  line  of  nine  syllables  ...;...  the  syllable 
that  is  wanting  is  in  the  middle.  .  .  . 

The  existing  text  of  the  plays  presents  us  with  a  con- 
siderable number  of  verses  of  this  description.  Is  the 
text  in  all  such  cases  to  be  accounted  corrupt  ?  I  con- 
fess myself  strongly  inclined  to  think  that  it  probably 
is.  The  only  other  solution  of  the  difficulty  that  has 
been  offered  is,  that  we  have  a  substitute  for  the  omitted 
syllable  in  a  pause  by  which  the  reading  of  the  line  is 
to  be  broken.  This  notion  appears  to  have  received  the 
sanction  of  Coleridge.  But  I  cannot  think  that  he  had 
fully  considered  the  matter.  //  is  certain  that  in  no 
verse  of  Coleridge  s  own  does  any  mere  pause  ever  per- 
form the  function  which  would  thus  be  assigned  to  it. 
Nor  is  any  such  principle  recognized  in  any  other  English 

1  Prolegomena,  pp.  36-7,  here  and  there ;  edition,  Chapman  and  Hall, 
London,  1857. 


1 96  Science  of  English   Verse. 

verse,  modern  or  ancient,  of  which  we  have  a  text  that 
can  be  absolutely  relied  upon.1  .  .  .  How  is  it  possible 
by  any  length  of  pause  to  bring  any  thing  like  rhythm 
out  of  the  above  quoted  words,  — 

'  Than  the  soft  myrtle.     But  man,  proud  man.' 

If  this  be  verse,  there  is  nothing  that  may  not  be  so 
designated." 

The  logic  of  this  passage  may  be  thus  compressed, 
for  the  purpose  of  examination  : 

(1)  That  the  laws  of  English  verse,  as  deduced  from 
the  practices  of  English  poets,  do  not  admit  the  substi- 
tution of  a  rest  ("  pause  ")  for  a  sound,  in  the  body  of  a 
line; 

(2)  That  Coleridge,  who  interpreted  the   given  line 
upon  the  principle  that  such  laws  did  allow  such  substi- 
tution, never  applied  the  principle  in  his  own  verse ; 

(3)  That  even  if  the  laws  of  English  verse  did  allow 
such  substitution,  the  allowance  would  not  avail  for  the 
given  line,  since  no  length  of  rest  can  possibly  make  it 
rhythmical. 

Perhaps  the  argument  (i)  may  be  considered  suffi- 
ciently met  by  the  considerations  just  now  advanced 
under  the  head  of  Shakspere's  use  of  the  rest,  showing 
that  even  our  popular  poetry  is  built  upon  the  necessity 
of  such  substitutions  and  upon  perfect  confidence  in 
the  rhythmic  perceptions  of  the  ordinary  ear  as  to 
where  to  place  them.  In  point  of  fact  Mother  Goose 
would  not  be  rhythmical  without  them.  As  to  the  prac- 
tices of  poets,  see  the  scheme  of  Tennyson's  Break, 
break,  break,  which  involves  such  rests ;  and  a  thousand 
similar  songs  could  be  cited. 

1  The  italics  here  are  the  present  writer's. 


Rests,  in   Christabel. 


197 


(2)  But  the  assertion  that  "  in  no  verse  of  Coleridge  s 
own  does  any  mere  pause  ever  perform  the  function 
which  would  be  thus  assigned  to  it"  is  so  far  from 
being  correct  that  the  entire  poem  of  Christabel,  in 
which  Coleridge  explicitly  supposed  that  he  had  made  a 
new  departure  in  verse,  depends  for  its  rhythm  upon 
the  constant  substitution  of  rests  ("pauses")  for  sounds, 
by  the  reader,  in  the  body  of  the  line.  This  was  the 
true  innovation  made  by  Coleridge  in  this  poem — an 
innovation,  let  it  be  carefully  noted,  not  at  all  upon  the 
practices  of  English  verse  in  general  but  upon  that  par- 
ticular phase  of  them  represented  by  the  inexorable 
stiffness  of  the  "  elegant "  period  which  bred  Pope  and 
other  like  monsters  of  refinement.  Nothing  is  more 
common  than  such  rests  in  the  body  of  the  line  in 
Anglo-Saxon  verse,  and,  as  shown,  in  popular  verse  and 
in  music,  and  —  to  return  to  our  point  —  in  Coleridge's 
own  Christabel.  For  example  : 

3 


c  c  c 

i 

c 

A 

c 

^  5  r 

^ 

c 

A 

f     P 

Tis      the    mid 

-die 

of 

night 

by    the    cas 

. 

tie  clock. 

And     the  owls 

have 

a   - 

wa  - 

ken'd  the  crow 

- 

ing  cock. 

A 

A 

1  c  c 

Tu  -whit  ! 

-1 

X 

i 

i 

--;  f 

Tu-whoo  1 

1 

X 

A 

A 

Ax-^ 

A 

n  c  c 

1 

c 

c 

1    f    C 

c 

c  c 

And  hark, 

a  - 

gain, 

the    crow 

. 

ing  cock 

A^  -x 

A 

A 

"   f   C 

How  drow 

P. 

C 

si    - 

e 

"    F    C 

it   crew  1 

* 

presents  us  with  a  scheme  of  the  first  stanza  in  Chris- 
tabel, which  reveals  that  the  entire  rhythmus  depends 
on  the  occurrence  of  definite  rests  in  the  body  of  the 


198  Science  of  English   Verse. 

line  as  well  as  at  the  end  of  the  line.  No  one  indeed 
was  more  familiar  with  such  rhythmic  devices  than 
Coleridge,  and  many  instances  of  such  rests  could  be 
given  from  his  work. 

(3)  Finally,  as  to  the  assertion  that  no  length  of 
pause  could  bring  any  thing  like  rhythm  out  of  the 
given  line  :  if  the  words  be  uttered  according  to  the 
scheme  offered  above,  they  must  certainly  sound  per- 
fectly rhythmical  to  every  ear. 

SHAKSPERE'S   USE    OF    END-STOPPED    AND    RUN- 
ON   LINES. 

The  explanation  of  end-stopped  and  run-on  lines 
already  given  need  not  be  repeated  here,  and  perhaps 
it  will  be  sufficient  to  give  the  briefest  outline  of  the 
manner  in  which  these  varieties  of  the  line-group  in 
blank  verse  have  become  tests  of  genuineness  —  as  in 
determining  the  respective  shares  of  Shakspere  and 
Fletcher  in  the  play  of  Henry  VIII.  for  example,  or 
tests  of  chronology  —  as  in  determining,  or  at  least 
helping  to  determine,  the  comparative  dates  of  Shak- 
spere's  plays. 

In  order  to  place  vivid  examples  before  the  reader's 
mind  at  the  outset :  here  are  four  end-stopped  lines 
from  near  the  opening  of  Love's  Labor's  Lost: 

Our  late  edict  shall  strongly  stand  in  force  : 
Navarre  shall  be  the  wonder  of  the  world ; 
Our  court  shall  be  a  little  academe, 
Still  and  contemplative  in  living  art. 

Let  it  be  observed  how  each  of  these  lines  is  so 
"  stopped  "  at  the  "  end  "  (hence  "  end-stopped  "  lines), 
by  comma  or  other  mark  of  punctuation  or  sometimes 


Shaksperes  Run-on  Lines.  199 

by  a  stop  only  logical  and  without  mark,  as  to  necessi- 
tate a  rest  or  pause  of  the  voice. 

Here,  on  the  other  hand,  are  four  run-on  lines  from 
The  Tempest,  which  I  have  chosen  because  it  is  one  of 
Shakspere's  latest  plays  while  Love's  Labor's  Lost  is 
one  of  the  earliest,  and,  although  the  end-stopped  test 
is  not  to  be  relied  on  alone  nor  pushed  too  far,  there 
seems  no  doubt  that  the  timid  use  of  run-on  lines  is  in 
general  characteristic  of  Shakspere's  earlier  period  and 
the  free  use  of  them  characteristic  of  his  maturity  in 
art.  These  lines  are  from  Act  I.  Scene  2 : 

.  .  .  and  by  my  prescience 
I  find  my  Zenith  doth  depend  upon 
A  most  auspicious  star,  whose  influence 
If  now  I  court  not,  but  omit,  my  fortunes 
Will  ever  after  droop. 

Here  it  is  perceived  that  neither  of  these  lines  logi- 
cally admits  of  a  rest  at  the  end  but  that  the  close 
connection  between  the  last  word  of  each  line  and  the 
first  word  of  the  next  inevitably  "runs"  the  voice  "on" 
(hence  "  run-on  "  lines)  past  the  end  of  the  line,  usually 
to  some  point  in  the  body  of  the  next  line.  Now  the 
proportion  of  run-on  lines  to  end-stopped  lines  in  Love's 
Labor's  Lost  is  only  a  little  more  than  one  in  eighteen 
while  that  in  The  Tempest  is  a  little  more  than  one  in 
three.  It  will  thus  be  readily  seen  that  here  is  a  very 
precise  method  of  estimating  the  changes  in  Shak- 
spere's habits  of  versification,  and  that  this  precise 
method  must  be  far  more  reliable  as  tracing  the  true 
course  of  his  artistic  growth  than  those  vague  judg- 
ments which  embody  so  much  of  the  personal  equation 
and  which  were  for  so  many  years  the  bane  and  dis- 
grace of  Shakspere  criticism.  In  fact  it  may  be  said 


2OO  Science  of  English   Verse. 

that  the  spirit  of  precise  inquiry  has  had  the  same  stim- 
ulating effect  in  Shakspere  scholarship  as  in  physical 
science,  and  that  under  its  influence  the  world  is  begin- 
ning for  the  first  time  to  get  insight  into  the  true  life 
and  artistic  growth  of  our  master. 

The  student  should  now  familiarize  himself  with  this 
branch  of  Shakspere  criticism  by  choosing  some  play  of 
Shakspere,  counting  first  all  its  blank-verse  lines,  then 
its  end-stopped  and  run-on  lines  respectively,  and  finally 
deducing  the  proportion  of  each  variety  of  line  to  the 
whole  number  of  lines.  Treated  in  this  manner  the 
plays  after  a  while  begin  to  assume  a  distinctive  physi- 
ognomy even  to  the  eye  :  as  one  reads  one  sees,  in  a 
delightful  half-consciousness,  the  face  of  the  young 
Shakspere  glowing  through  the  lines,  or  the  more 
reverend  countenance  of  the  grave  and  mature  artist 
who  has  embodied  the  whole  of  his  life  in  his  art  and  is 
become  a  great  and  forgiving  and  patient  Prospero, 
ready  to  lay  down  his  mantle  and  depart. 

Yet  —  it  is  worth  while  repeating  the  warning,  for 
ideas  of  this  sort  are  apt  to  run-away  with  one  —  the 
end-stopped  and  run-on  line  test  is  not  to  be  relied  on, 
alone,  for  determining  the  relative  priority  of  plays  near 
together.  While,  as  between  the  early  extreme  of 
Shakspere's  growth  represented  by  Love's  Labor's  Lost 
and  the  late  extreme  represented  by  The  Tempest,  the 
difference  in  versification  with  regard  to  these  varieties 
of  lines  is  perfectly  plain  ;  while,  indeed,  every  one  but 
moderately  acquainted  with  the  secrets  and  necessities 
of  dramatic  blank  verse  must  see  that  the  progress  of 
an  artist  like  Shakspere  could  not  be  otherwise  than 
from  the  hardness  and  four-square-ness  of  the  end- 
stopped  line  to  the  rounded  grace  and  freedom  of  the 


Shakspere  s  Double-ending  Lines.         201 


run-on  line;  nevertheless  many  other  considerations 
arise  before  the  grave  and  careful  Shakspere  scholar 
which  must  be  held  steadily  in  view  along  with  this, 
or  any  other  single  one  of  the  "metrical  tests." 

The  method  of  end-stopped  and  run-on  lines  was  first 
discussed  by  C.  Bathurst  in  his  work,  Changes  in 
Shakspere' s  Versification  at  Different  Periods  of  his 
Life.  Those  desirous  of  pursuing  the  subject  may 
consult  that ;  Dowden's  admirable  Shakspere  Primer, 
Macmillan  &  Co.,  London  and  New  York  (but  I  believe 
more  lately  published  by  Messrs.  Appleton  &  Co.,  New 
York) ;  Mr.  Furnivall's  Introduction  to  the  Delius  Text 
embodied  in  The  Leopold  Shakspere,  Cassell,  Fetter,  & 
Galpin,  London,  Paris  and  New  York ;  and,  here  and 
there,  the  papers  and  discussions  set  forth  in  the  Trans- 
actions of  the  New  Shakspere  Society  for  1874. 

The  method  of  using  this  test  for  the  determination 
of  the  genuineness  of  Shakspere's  plays  can  be  better 
explained  when  we  consider  the  next  branch  of  our 
present  subject,  namely : 

SHAKSPERE'S   USE   OF    THE    DOUBLE-ENDING,    OR 
FEMININE-ENDING,   LINE. 

The  following  is  a  specimen  of  the  double-ending 
line,  from  The  Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona,  Act  I, 
Scene  i  : 


ew 
u 

And 

A 
built 

A 

t  r 

so  shelv 

t 

-  ing 

A 

I 

t 

one 

f 

can 

A 

t    C_d* 

-  not     climb  it 

A 

Here 

the  final 

bar  has  the 

form 

not 

cllmbit 

instead  c 

the  typic  form 


not    climb 


In  the  treatment  of  Chau- 


2O2 


Science  of  English   Verse. 


cer's  verse  we  became  familiar  with  the  special  rhyth- 
mic effect  of  this  breaking-up  of  the  typic  f  which  ter- 
minates the  line  into  f '  «f,  its  equivalent ;  and  the  "it" 
in  "climb  it  "  here  is  much  like  the  final  e  in  Chaucer, 
as  to  rhythmic  value. 

The  feminine  ending  is  a  species  of  double  ending : 
where  the  two  sounds  at  the  end  of  the  line  constitute 
separate  words,  as  in  "climb  it,"  the  ending  is  called 
double ;  where  these  two  sounds  belong  to  the  same 
word,  as  the  terminal  word  "  slander  "  in 


i  c 

The 


A 

leaf 


t 

of 


A 

r 

eg   - 


A 

c  r 

Ian  -  tine, 


A 

c  r 

whom  not 


to     slan-der 


the  ending  is  called  feminine.  Not  infrequently  the 
terminal  f  is  broken  into  three  sounds,  as  in  "mira- 
cles "  at  the  end  of  the  following  line  : 


A 

c  r 

Must  be 


a  faith 


t  r 

that   rea 


-  son  with 


. 

-out  mir  -  ac-Ies 


Let  it  be  carefully  observed  that  in  the  above  three  lines 
the  first,  if  typic,  would  end  with  the  sound  "  climb," 
thus 

Q  A  A  A  A  A 

icr    t  r    c  r    f  r    c  r 

And  built       so    shelv  -      ing    that        we   can  -     not  climb 

the  second  line,  if  typic,  would  end  with  "  slan-,"  thus : 


t  r 

The     leaf 


r 


of      eg   - 


t  r 

Ian  -  tine, 


r 


whom  not 


t  r 

to   slan  - 


and  the  third,  if  typic,  would  end  with  "  mir-,"  thus  : 

Q  A  A  A  A  A 

8  t  r    c  r    t  r    t  r    t  r 

Must    be          a    faith      that     rea    -     son  with    -  out  mir    - 


Double  Ending  as  Metrical  Test.        203 

From  this  circumstance  such  syllables  as  the  "it"  in 
"climb  it,"  "der"  in  "slander,"  and  "  acles  "  in  "mira- 
cles," are  often  called  "extra  syllables."  The  reader 
in  hearing  this  term  must  of  course  understand  that 
the  extra  syllable  is  simply  another  sound  which  takes 
off  part  of  the  time-value  of  the  typical  f  at  the  end  of 
blank  verse  lines,  and  that  there  is  no  such  thing  in 
rhythm  as  a  really  "extra"  syllable,  whatever  time- 
value  is  in  the  bar  being  distributed  among  all  the 
sounds  in  that  bar,  whether  these  be  one,  or  five,  or 
none  —  that  is,  rests. 

Care  must  be  had  against  mistaking  lines  as  double- 
ending  which  are  not  so.  For  example  the  following 
italicized  lines  look  like  double-ending  ones  at  first : 

Thou  shalt  not  lack 

The  flower  that's  like  thy  face,  pale  primrose,  nor 
The  azured  harebell  like  thy  veins,  no,  nor 
The  leaf  of  eglantine,  &c. 

Neither  of  them  however  is  a  double-ending  line :  both 
have  the  typic  termination  f,  as  shown  by  the  scheme  : 


A 

A 

A 

A 

A 

t    ^ 

t  r 

t  r 

t  r 

t  r 

The  flower 

that's  like 

thy    face, 

pale  prim- 

rose,  nor 

A 

A 

A 

A 

A 

t  r 

The    a- 

t  r 

zured  hare  - 

t  r 

bell    like 

t  r 

thy  veins 

t  r 

no,    nor. 

Two  very  interesting  applications  of  the  double-end- 
ing as  a  metrical  test  have  been  made  by  modern  schol- 
arship. 

1  This  is  only  a  typic  scheme,  sufficient  for  the  purpose  in  hand.  The  actual  movement 
of  the  voice  docs  not  accent  the  two  "  nor "  s  at  the  end  of  these  lines,  but  disposes  of 
them  in  a  very  interesting  way  which  will  presently  be  explained  under  Shakspere's  use 
of  the  rhythmic  accent. 


204  Science  of  English    Verse. 

(i)  For  example,  it  has  been  applied,  in  conjunction 
with  the  end-stopped  line  test,  to  determine  the  relative 
shares  of  Shakspere  and  Fletcher  in  the  play  of  Henry 
VIII.  The  very  palpable  unlikeness  in  the  style  of 
different  passages  in  this  play  had  attracted  the  atten- 
tion of  critics  as  early  as  the  time  of  Dr.  Johnson ;  but 
it  was  in  1850  that  the  subject  was  taken  hold  of  in 
earnest. 

The  Gentleman 's  Magazine  for  that  year  contained  a 
notable  paper  by  Mr.  James  Spedding,1  in  which,  after 
having  assigned  certain  parts  of  the  play  to  Fletcher 
and  certain  parts  to  Shakspere  upon  general  considera- 
tions of  their  respective  styles,  the  writer  proceeded  to 
announce  at  least  the  possibility  of  a  metrical  test,  and 
partly  to  shape  the  method  of  applying  it.  The  stu- 
dent will  derive  such  a  valuable  lesson  as  to  the  manner 
in  which  reverent  scholarship  avails  itself  of  apparently 
trivial  facts  and  applies  them  in  the  precise  determina- 
tion of  what  seem  to  be  insoluble  problems,  that  I  think 
it  well  worth  while  to  trace  the  progress  of  this  metri- 
cal test  from  the  beginning  made  by  Mr.  Spedding  to 
the  development  of  it  afterwards  made  by  Mr.  Fleay 
and  Mr.  Furnivall.  "  It  has  been  observed  "  (said  Mr. 
Spedding,  in  the  latter  part  of  his  paper)  .  .  .  that 
lines  with  a  redundant  syllable  at  the  end"  —  by  which 
he  means  double-ending  and  feminine-ending  lines  — 
"occur  in  Henry  VIII.  twice  as  often  as  in  any  of  Shak- 
spere's  other  plays.  Now,  it  will  be  found  on  examina- 
tion that  this  observation  does  not  apply  to  all  parts  of 
the  play  alike,  but  only  to  those  which  I  have  noticed 
as,  in  their  general  character,  un-Shaksperian."  He 

1  Entitled  "  Who  wrote  Shakspere's  Henry  VIII.  ?  "  It  may  be  found 
reprinted  in  the  Transactions  of  the  New  Shakspere  Society  for  1874. 


Mr.  Spedding's  Test  with  Double  Endings.  205 

then  arranges  a  table  in  which  he  gives  the  proportion 
of  double-ending  lines  to  the  whole  number  of  lines,  for 
each  scene  of  the  play.  Having  next  ascertained  what 
is  the  ordinary  proportion  of  such  lines  in  two  of  Shak- 
spere's  plays  which  were  written  about  the  same  period 
with  Henry  VIII. — namely,  Cymbeline  and  Winter's 
Tale — he  goes  through  the  table,  and  wherever  he  finds 
this  proportion  substantially  carried  out  in  any  scene, 
he  assigns  that  scene  to  Shakspere ;  wherever  he  finds 
a  greatly  larger  proportion  of  double-ending  lines  in  a 
scene,  he  assigns  that  scene  to  Fletcher.  Having  com- 
pared these  assignments  with  those  which  he  had  pre- 
viously made,  based  upon  broader  grounds  of  style,  he 
finds  them  substantially  agreeing. 

Before  showing  the  further  development  of  this  pro- 
cess, it  is  impossible  to  forbear  an  acknowledgment  of 
gratitude  to  the  author  of  the  paper  just  quoted  as  a 
genuine  discoverer  in  criticism.  While,  as  has  been 
before  remarked,  the  double-ending  test  should  not  be 
pushed  into  minuter  offices  than  it  or  any  other  such 
test  can  discharge ;  yet,  as  a  precise  and  numerically- 
verifiable  check  to  critical  estimates  which  have  been 
formed  upon  other  considerations  often  liable  to  bias 
from  personal  temperament  and  always  more  or  less 
vague,  it  is  of  very  great  value  ;  and,  as  importing  into 
criticism  the  methods  of  exact  science  and  to  that  ex- 
tent relieving  it  from  its  long-time  opprobrium  of  uncer- 
tainty, the  service  of  Mr.  Spedding  to  modern  culture 
must  be  regarded  very  great. 

In  course  of  time  a  clew  which  made  the  process  of 
reasoning  just  detailed  still  more  precise  was  found. 
Mr.  Fleay,  in  examining  several  Elizabethan  dramatists 
besides  Shakspere  with  reference  to  the  use  of  rhymes, 


206 


Science  of  English   Verse. 


double-endings,  &c.,  in  their  verse,  had  observed  amongst 
other  things  that  Fletcher's  verse  is  distinguished, 

"  (i)  By  number  of  double  or  female  endings ;  these 
are  more  numerous  in  Fletcher  than  in  any  other  writer 
in  the  language,  and  are  sufficient  of  themselves  to  dis- 
tinguish his  works ; " 

"  (2)  By  frequent  pauses  at  the  end  of  lines ;  this 
union  of  'the  stopped  line'  with  the  double  ending  is 
peculiar  to  Fletcher."  J 

Without  going  farther  into  Mr.  Fleay's  skilful  and 
laborious  researches :  if  we  examine,  by  the  musical 
method  of  schemes,  a  double-ending  line  of  Fletcher's 
with  reference  to  the  peculiarity  marked  (2)  above,  we 
shall  find  Fletcher's  combination  of  "double-ending" 
with  "end-stopped"  line  to  be  a  rhythmic  idiosyncrasy 
so  individual  as  to  form  a  very  well-marked  test  be- 
tween Fletcher  and  Shakspere,  especially  when  we  add 
the  characteristic  circumstance  that  Fletcher's  double 
endings  very  often  consist  of  two  important  words,  as 
"a  friend's  part"  (which  is  the  final  bar  of  the  first 
Fletcher  line  given  below),  instead  of  "  to  climb  it,"  a 
heavy  word  and  a  light  one  ("  it ")  as  in  Shakspere's 
double-ending  line  before  cited.  Here  then  is  a  scheme 
of  five  consecutive  lines  from  Fletcher,  in  the  Little 
French  Lawyer: 


r  r    t  r 

Col  -  our'd    with  smooth 
A 

t  r 

A     gen  - 


A 


t  r 

tie  -  man's, 


r 

cu 

A 

t  r 


ex  -  cu  - 

A 


A 

A 

t  r 

I  Ld* 

ses.  Was't 

a  friend's  part, 

A 

A 

f  r 

t  r 

that   wears 

a    sword, 

1  p.  53,  Rev.  F.  G.  Fleay's  paper  number  2,  On  Metrical  Tests  as  ap- 
plied to  Dramatic  Poetry,  printed  in  The  Transactions  of  the  New  Shak- 
spere Society,  for  1874. 


Scheme  of  Fletcher's  Double  Endings.    207 


A 

A 

A 

A 

A 

c  r 

And  stands 

t  r 

up  -  on 

f  r 

the  point 

t  r 

of       rep  - 

C  Ld* 

u  -  ta  -  tion, 

A 

A 

A 

A 

A 

c  r 

To  hide 

t  r 

his    head 

A 

c  r 

a  -  loud 

f  r 

that  when 
A 

t  r 

and  led 

C    f 

his      hon  - 

A 

c  r 

him      to 

C  Ld* 

our  call'd  him, 

c  c  c 

his    for  -  tune  ? 

r  r 

Call'd  him 

If  the  final  bars  in  the  first,  third,  fourth,  and  fifth  of 
these  lines  be  examined,  it  will  be  found  that  each  ends 
not  only  in  two  sounds,  but  that  these  two  sounds  have 
a  comma  after  them,  indicating  a  rest  of  the  voice  be- 
tween their  last  sound  and  the  first  of  the  next  line,  and 
thus  distinguishing  them  from  run-on  lines  which  have 
no  such  rest.  Now  it  must  be  remembered  that  in  the 
ordinary  end-stopped  line  this  rest  is  supplied  out  of 
the  time-value  of  the  last  f  in  the  final  bar,  thus  : 


t  r 

But,    as 


t  r 

I    think, 


t  r 

(for    tru  - 


r 


ly    would 


c  c 

I    speak,  — 


where  the  silence  indicated  by  the  dash  in  the  text  is 
indicated  by  the  i  in  the  scheme,  and  the  time-value  of 
"  speak,"  which  would  otherwise  be  f,  has  been  reduced 
to  f  to  make  room  for  the  rest.  But  if  the  first  line  of 
Fletcher's  above-cited  be  read  aloud  one  easily  feels 
that  this  procedure  will  not  do  :  after  the  words  "  a 
friend's  part,"  a  longer  and  more  pronounced  rest  is 
needed  before  the  intercalary  clauses,  "a  gentleman's,  a 
man's  that  wears  a  sword,"  &c.  Whence  is  this  rest 
to  come  ?  We  cannot  slice  off  a  cantle  of  the  time- 
value  of  "part"  for  it, — for  "  part  "  itself  has  had  to 
share  some  of  the  time-value  of  "friend's"  —  thus 


208 


Science  of  English   Verse. 


f       f  '  «f     —     and  its  time-value  p  is  not  enough  for 

a    friend's  part 

the  rest  here  needed. 

In  point  of  fact  the  voice  makes  another  bar  to  the 
line  here  :  and  —  relying  upon  the  rhythmic  sense 
which  will  never  tolerate  any  thing  like  an  "  extra " 
or  "  redundant "  sound,  but  which  inexorably  fills  out 
with  rests  any  bar  partly  occupied  by  sound  —  the 
actual  conduct  of  the  reader's  voice  in  such  a  line  is 
as  follows  : 


r  r 

Col-our'd 


r 


with  smooth 


t  r 


A 

A 

A 

r 

t  r 

t  * 

Was't 

a  friend's 

part 

Here  the  requisite  rest  is  obtained  at  the  end ;  but 
obtained  by  making  the  line-group  consist  of  six  bars 
instead  of  the  five  bars  which  constitute  a  typic  line  of 
blank  verse.  Thus  the  precision  of  the  musical  system 
of  noting  rhythm  acquaints  us  with  the  important  fact 
that  many  of  Fletcher's  end-stopped  double-ending  lines 
are  really  Alexandrines,1  and  that  this  is  the  secret  of 
the  characteristic  effect  which  Fletcher's  rhythm  2  pro- 
duces upon  every  ear,  —  an  effect  smooth,  yet  heavy  and 

A 

1  Lines  consisting  of    six  bars  of  the  form   §   «      «       are  called 

o    l>      | 
"  Alexandrines  "  from  their  use  in  the  French  poem  The  Alexandriad. 

2  Mr.  Emerson,  in  Representative  Men,  gives  a  perfect  description  of  it, 
though  apparently  not  suspecting  Fletcher  here.     He  describes  the  verse 
of  Fletcher's  part  of  Henry  VIII.  as  "  written  by  a  superior,  thoughtful 
man,  with  a  vicious  ear,"  adding:  "I  can  mark  his  lines,  and  know  well 
their  cadence.  .  .  .  The   lines  are  constructed  on  a  given  tune,  and  the 
verse  has  even  a  trace  of  pulpit  eloquence." 

Mr.  Spedding  in  a  letter  to  The  Gentleman's  Magazine,  October,  1850, 
(reprinted  in  the  Shaks.  Soc.  Trans,  for  1874,  Appendix,  p.  21)  mentions: 
"  The  resemblance  of  the  style,  in  some  parts  of  the  play,  to  Fletcher's, 


Fletcher's  Double  Endings,  Alexandrines.  209 

crawling  withal.  If  now  we  compare  this  fact  with  the 
curiously-differing  practice  of  Shakspere,  we  obtain  a 
very  striking  mark  of  distinction.  While  Shakspere 
used  the  double-ending  line  far  more  freely  in  his  late 
period  than  in  his  early  one  —  the  early  Love's  Labor's 
Lost  has  but  nine x  double-ending  lines  in  a  total  of 
2,789  while  the  late  Winter 's  Tale  has  six  hundred  and 
thirty-nine  double-endings  in  a  total  of  2,758  —  he  also 
used  the  run-on  line  with  a  similarly-increased  frequen- 
cy :  so  that  while  by  virtue  of  the  more  frequent  double- 
endings  his  verse  grew  more  like  Fletcher's,  it  grew  more 
unlike  Fletcher's  by  virtue  of  the  enormous  musical  dif- 
ference between  Shakspere's  run-on  lines,  which  are 
merely  rendered  more  elastic  and  varied  by  the  double- 
ending,  and  Fletcher's  end-stopped  lines,  which  are  really 
impressed  with  the  sluggishness  of  the  Alexandrine  by 
the  double-ending.  In  other  words,  Shakspere's  run-on 
double-ending  line  preserves  the  metrical  type  of  the 
five-barred  blank  verse  line,  and  agreeably  varies  the 
rhythmical  type  ;  while  Fletcher's  end-stopped  double- 
ending  line  frequently  destroys  the  metrical  type  of 
blank  verse,  giving  it  six  bars  instead  of  five  to  the  line, 
and  does  not  vary  the  rhythm  at  all. 

But,  to  return  from  this  digression.  The  procedure 
described  by  Mr.  Spedding  in  his  paper  on  Henry  VIII. 
was  carried  out  by  Mr.  Fleay  on  a  larger  scale,  with  the 

was  pointed  out  to  me  several  years  ago  by  Alfred  Tennyson  .  .  . ;  and 
long  before  that  the  general  distinctions  between  Shakspere's  manner 
and  Fletcher's  had  been  admirably  explained  by  Charles  Lamb  in  his  note 
on  the  Two  Noble  Kinsmen,  and  by  Mr.  Spalding  in  his  Essay." 

1  Perhaps  it  is  worth  while  noting  a  probable  lapsus  of  the  pen  which 
gives  this  number  as  "  seven  "  in  Mr.  Fleay's  paper  number  I  On  Metrical 
Tests  applied  to  Shakspere ,  p.  7,  while  the  figure  in  the  annexed  table 
is  "  9." 


2io  Science  of  English   Verse. 

additional  clew  of  Fletcher's  habitual  combination  of 
the  double-ending  with  the  end-stop  ;  and  the  result  was 
a  substantial  confirmation  of  Mr.  Spedding's  original 
distribution.  It  is  worth  the  student's  while  to  remem- 
ber the  general  proportions  of  double-endings  as  be- 
tween Fletcher  and  Shakspere  at  the  period  when 
Henry  VIII.  was  written  —  probably  about  1613.  This 
proportion  appears,  from  the  table  in  Mr.  Fleay's  note 
printed  on  page  23  of  the  Appendix  to  the  New  Shak- 
spere Society's  Transactions  for  1874,  to  have  been  as 
follows.  Out  of  the  1,146  blank  verse  lines  in  Henry 
VIII.  assigned  to  Shakspere,  380  were  double  endings : 
while,  out  of  1,467  blank  verse  lines  assigned  to  Fletch- 
er, 863  were  double  endings. 

Again  :  Mr.  Spedding's  distribution  was  independent- 
ly confirmed,  upon  an  examination  of  the  play  with 
reference  to  the  end-stopped  line  only,  by  Mr.  Furnivall. 

When  it  is  stated  that  Mr.  Samuel  Hickson,  before 
1850,  had  made  an  independent  distribution  of  the  parts 
between  Shakspere  and  Fletcher  on  general  grounds  of 
style,  which,  after  the  publication  of  Mr.  Spedding's 
paper,  was  found  to  agree  with  its  conclusions  in  a 
surprising  manner,  the  student  will  be  able  to  perceive 
the  valuable  aid  which  minute  criticism  —  as  we  may 
perhaps  call  the  verse-tests  —  can  render  in  affording 
checks  to  large  criticism. 

The  mention  of  Mr.  Fleay's  name  in  connection  with 
the  double-ending  researches  above  makes  it  necessary 
to  add  that  he  has  associated  his  name  most  completely 
with  the  rhyme-test  —  which  ascertains  chronology  &c. 
from  Shakspere's  growing  disuse  of  rhymes  as  he  be- 
came older  —  while  Mr.  Spedding  places  more  reliance 
upon  the  pause-test,  that  is,  the  relative  occurrence  of 


Shakspere's   Weak  Endings.  211 

rests  in  the  body  of  the  line  and  at  the  end  of  the  line, 
at  different  periods  of  Shakspere's  work. 

SHAKSPERE'S  USE  OF  WEAK-ENDING   AND  LIGHT- 
ENDING   LINES. 

A  line  of  blank  verse  ending  in  a  merely  conjunctive 
word  such  as  and,  as,  if,  in,  nor,  than,  with,  is  called  a 
weak-ending  line  :  while  one  ending  in  an  auxiliary  verb 
such  as  am,  have,  is,  -would,  and  the  like,  or  in  a  relative 
pronoun  who,  which,  that,  and  the  like,  or  in  since,  while, 
through,  till,  and  such  words,  is  called  a  light-ending 
line.  In  the  following  lines  from  The  Winter's  Tale, 
the  first  is  a  light-ending,  and  the  second  is  a  weak-end- 
ing line : 

Since  what  I  am  to  say,  must  be  but  that 

Which  contradicts  my  accusation,  and 

The  testimony  on  my  part  no  other 

But  what  comes  from  myself,  it  scarce  shall  boot  me. 

It  is  readily  seen  that  weak  and  light  endings  really 
make  a  species  of  run-on  lines,  for  they  have  in  common 
the  incident  that  the  voice  does  not  pause  after  their 
last  sound  but  runs-on  its  rhythmic  grouping  into  the 
next  line.  The  use  of  these  endings  therefore  forms  an 
important  part  of  phrasing;  and  nothing  is  more  notice- 
able than  the  parallelism  between  the  advance  which 
Shakspere  made  in  the  breadth  and  freedom  of  his 
phrasing  and  the  advance  which  every  growing  musi- 
cian makes  in  precisely  the  same  particulars.  Observe 
for  instance  how  grand  and  sweeping  are  the  phrases  in 
the  lines  quoted :  the  real  metrical  grouping  is 

Since  what  I  am  to  say, 

Must  be  but  that  which  contradicts  my  accusation, 
And   the  testimony  on  my  part  no  other  but  what  comes  from 
myself ; 


212  Science  of  English   Verse. 

and  the  words  are  so  arranged  that  the  rhythm  is  of 
incessant  variety  while  the  type  is  never  lost  sight  of. 

The  weak  and  light-ending  lines,  like  the  run-on 
lines  of  which  they  are  a  species,  are  highly  character- 
istic of  Shakspere's  later  periods  as  contradistinguished 
from  his  earlier  ones :  but  they  differ  from  the  double- 
ending  and  run-on  lines  in  the  circumstance  that  they 
do  not  show  a  gradual  increase  in  frequency  but  seem 
to  appear  almost  suddenly  in  Macbeth  and  Antony  and 
Cleopatra,  after  which  they  are  freely  used. 

For  example,  in  the  1,146  lines  constituting  Shak- 
spere's part  of  Henry  VIII.  there  are  82  weak  and  light 
endings ;  and  Cymbeline,  another  very  late  play,  shows 
130  weak  and  light  endings;  while  some  earlier  plays, 
such  as  Comedy  of  Errors  and  Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona, 
have  none  at  at  all,  Midsummer  Night's  Dream  one,  and 
Henry  IV.  one  in  each  part. 

The  subject  of  weak  and  light  endings  in  its  relation 
to  Shakspere's  art  has  been  developed  by  Professor 
Ingram,  of  Trinity  College,  Dublin,  who  has  formulated 
his  researches  in  a  most  useful  table  showing  the  per- 
centages of  such  endings  in  the  plays. 

SHAKSPERE'S    USE    OF   THE   RHYTHMIC   ACCENT. 

In  his  peculiar  management  of  the  rhythmic  accent, 
also,  Shakspere's  supreme  mastery  of  the  technic  of 
blank  verse  shows  itself  with  great  clearness.  We  can 
see  him  learning  to  think  in  verse.  Indeed,  growing 
always,  in  the  way  of  the  artist,  —  always  profiting  by 
the  practice  of  his  earlier  comedy,  of  his  middle-period 
tragedy,  —  always  converting  acquisition  into  second 
nature,  —  he  finally  made  his  whole  technic  a  constitu- 


Shakspere's  use  of  the  Rhythmic  Accent.    213 

tional  grace,  so  that  his  passion  flowed  with  a  hereditary 
pre-adaptation  to  rhythm. 

The  great  underlying  principle,  however,  of  all  Shak- 
spere's  applications  of  his  technic  in  practice  was  a 
superb  confidence  in  the  common  rhythmic  perception 
of  men  and  a  clear  insight  into  the  rhythmic  habit  of 
familiar  English  utterance.  This  method  of  working 
with  a  constant  inward  reference  to  the  great  average 
and  sum  of  men,  and  with  an  absolute  reliance  upon 
their  final  perception,  is  the  secret  of  that  infinitely- 
varied  rhythm  which  we  find  plashing  through  all  the 
later  blank  verse  of  Shakspere  ;  and  one  of  the  most 
frequent  means  by  which  he  effected  these  variations 
without  either  impairing  the  type  of  the  verse  or  strain- 
ing the  habit  of  utterance  out  of  its  familiar  course  was 
the  artful  transferrence  into  verse  of  the  actual  use 
which  English-speaking  people  make  of  the  rhythmic 
accent  in  their  current  discourse. 

Perhaps  every  one  has  observed  that  particularly  in 
Shakspere's  later  plays  he  seems  absolutely  careless  as 
to  what  kind  of  word  the  rhythmic  accent  may  fall  on. 
Sometimes  it  is  on  the  article  the,  sometimes  the  prepo- 
sition of,  sometimes  the  conjunction  and,  sometimes 
the  unaccented  syllable  of  a  two-sound  word  as  quickens 
instead  of  qtttckens,  and  so  on. 

This  apparent  carelessness  is  really  perfect  art.  It 
is  the  consummate  management  of  dramatic  dialogue  in 
blank  verse,  by  which  the  wilder  rhythmic  patterns  of 
ordinary  current  discourse  are  woven  along  through  the 
regular  strands  of  the  orderly  typic  lines. 

The  following  illustrative  schemes  aim  to  show  the 
student  precisely  how  this  is  done.  Every  one  knows 
what  is  called  an  "  air  with  variations,"  in  music,  and  has 


214  Science  of  English   Verse. 

observed  how  in  each  "variation"  the  "air"  is  to  be 
heard,  maintaining  its  comparatively  simple  melody,  as 
a  sort  of  type,  through  all  the  complexities  of  the  varia- 
tion-forms. If,  then,  the  typic  form  of  blank  verse  — 
which  is,  a  line  of  five  bars,  each  bar  of  the  form 

o  A 

K     f     f      —   be   considered    the   air,    and    the    actual 

o     \>_      \ 

rhythmic  movement  of  the  voice  in  uttering  each  line 
be  considered  the  variation,  we  shall  have  a  tolerably 
precise  conception  of  the  relation  between  type  and 
variety.  And  such  a  conception  suggests  the  course 
pursued  in  arranging  the  following  schemes  for  the  pur- 
pose of  showing  Shakspere's  peculiar  freedom  in  using 
the  rhythmic  accent.  A  given  passage  being  taken,  we 
first  apply  each  line  of  the  words  to  a  line  of  the  musi- 
cally-noted type  of  blank  verse :  such  application  will 
show  the  rhythmic  accent  falling  upon  sounds  which  do 
not  receive  any  accent  in  familiar  discourse  ;  but  if  we 
then  read  the  words  for  the  sense,  note  down  the  actual 
conduct  of  the  voice  in  so  reading  them,  and  compare 
the  resulting  notation  with  that  of  the  type,  we  will 
always  find  that  the  type  is  carefully  preserved  in  all  its 
essential  features  but  only  varied  by  different  distribu- 
tions of  time-values  in  each  bar  to  accommodate  the 
proper  position  of  the  accent.  This  proposition  sounds 
obscure  in  the  abstract,  but  becomes  quite  clear  in  the 
concrete  illustration. 

In  studying  these  schemes,  the  student  should  have 
always  in  mind  the  following  principles  : 

(1)  That   in  Shakspere's  verse  the  only  way  to  get 
the  exact  rhythm  is  to  read  for  the  sense  ; 

(2)  That  Shakspere  never  mangles  the  type   of  his 
blank  verse ; 


Rhythmic  Accent  in  The  Tempest.       215 


(3)  That  consequently,  in  every  line,1  five  rhythmic 
accents  are  always  present  or  accounted-for :  and  that 
it  is  in  his  method  of  "  accounting-for "  them  that 
Shakspere's  mastery  is  so  apparent,  for  it  is  the  method 
of  common  speech,  and  his  verse  thus  forever  crowds 
the  firm  fabric  of  the  type,  as  a  canvas,  with  all  the 
multitudinous  and  floating  rhythmical  figures  of  every- 
day utterance. 

Only  the  most  frequent  forms  of  this  accentual  varia- 
tion are  here  given.  An  exhaustive  presentation  of 
them  all  would  be  impossible  in  this  space.  But  it  is 
hoped  that  every  student  with  an  ordinary  musical  ear 
will  be  able  to  perceive,  and  to  note  down,  the  philoso- 
phy of  all  Shakspere's  music,  from  the  illustrations 
given. 

Let  us  apply  the  process  detailed  in  a  previous  sec- 
tion, for  example,  to  the  following  passage  from  Ferdi- 
nand's soliloquy  in  The  Tempest,  Act  III.  Scene  I. 

This  my  mean  task 

Would  be  as  heavy  to  me  as  odious ;  but 
The  mistress  which  I  serve  quickens  what's  dead 
And  makes  my  labors  pleasures. 

Applying  the  first  three  lines  to  their  types,  we  have 
the  scheme : 

3 

8  t  r 

This  my 

A  A  A 


t  r 

Would  be 


t  LT 

as     heav-y 


t  r 

to    me 


A 

t  r 

mean  task 

A 

A 

t  u 

t  r 

as      o  -  di  - 

ous,  but 

1  Of  course  those  lines  excepted  which  are  evidently  meant  to  contain 
three,  or  less,  bars,  or  four,  or  six,  bars :  some  of  which  are  written  to 
vary  the  metrical  type,  some  due  to  corrupt  texts,  some  to  lapsus  of  hurry, 
and  the  like  causes. 


2l6 


Science  of  English   Verse. 


t  r 

The  mist    - 


t  f 

ress  which 


t  f 


f  r 

quick  -  ens 


t  r 

what's  dead 


I    serve 

On  observing  the  position  of  the  stress-mark  A  in  this 
scheme  we  find  the  accentuation  in  three  places  to  be 
such  as  would  sound  very  absurd  in  usual  speech.  In 
the  first  line  an  accent  falls  on  "  my ; "  in  the  second 
on  "but ;"  in  the  third  on  the  syllable  "-ens"  of  quick- 
ens. Of  course  no  one  would  read :  This  my  mean 
task  would  be  as  heavy  to  me  as  odious  but  the  mistress 
which  I  serve  quicker  what's  dead. 

But,  when  read  for  the  sense  as  if  it  were  prose,  this 
is  the  rhythmic  movement  as  heard  in  the  ordinary 
reader's  utterance : 


r  c  r  r    c  r  c  c  c 

This   my  mean  task     would  be         as  heav-y 


A 

AX"~*\ 

•  t  r 

C 

c  {  c 

y          to  me 

as 

o  -  di-ous, 

Ax^  "\ 

A 

c  r 

t 

c  c 

I    serve 

quick-ens 

c    c  r    c "  c 

but      The  mist  -    ress      which 


what's  dead 

If  now  we  take  this  prose  utterance  and  divide  it  off 
into  line-groups  of  five  bars  each,  we  will  be  able  to 
compare  it  bar  for  bar  with  the  typic  scheme.  For  this 
purpose  let  us  write  the  typic  scheme,  then  under  it  bar 
for  bar  the  actual  scheme,  and  finally  the  corresponding 
words. 


Typic  Scheme  :  . 

Actual  Scheme : 
Words: 


I 

A 

c  r 

A 

LJ* 

This  my 

2 

A 

t  r 

A 

r  r 

mean  task 

Discussion  of  Scheme  from  The  Tempest.    2 1 7 


3 

4A 

5A 

6 

A 

T.S.       £    f 

C    P* 

f  r 

C  A£__f 

A.S.          £      f 
Words:  Would  be 

c  u 

as  heav-y 

r  r 

to  me 

titt 

as    o  -  di  -  ous 

8 

A 

9A 

10 

A 

u 

A 

r.s.       tt 

c  C 

C  (^ 

_|  Af 

Words:   The  mist  - 

c  r 

ress  which 

c  r 

I   serve 

CCJ 

.  .   quick-ens  w 

•m 


but 


c  r 
c  r 

what's  dead. 

Let  us  compare  such  bars  of  this  actual  scheme  as 
differ  from  their  corresponding  bars  in  the  typic  scheme. 
This  particular  passage  was  selected  because  it  reveals 
the  three  methods  most  habitual  with  Shakspere  of  vary- 
ing the  rhythmic  accent  and  still  preserving  the  type. 

(i)  On  comparing  bar  i  of  the  actual  scheme  with  its 
corresponding  bar  of  the  typic  scheme  above,  we  find 
that  the  typic  accent  has  been  shifted  to  the  first  in- 
stead of  the  second  word  in  the  bar;  the  typic  form 


,  with  the  accent  on  "my"  becomes 


This  my 

with  the  accent  on  "  this." 


This  my 


We  have  here  a  form  of  varying  the  typic  bar  »    p 

which  was  in  great  favor  with  Shakspere,  and  indeed 
with  Chaucer  two  hundred  years  before  him,  though  not 
nearly  so  freely  used  by  Chaucer  as  by  Shakspere.  The 


substituted   form  i 


Ld* 


might  be  better  written  — 


to  suit  the  more  flowing  and  less  snapped-off  utterance 


of  some  readers  —  thus  i 


r'c 


in  which 


2 1 8  Science  of  English   Verse. 

given  in  the  same  time  as  f,  being  indeed  only  another 
form  of  the  familiar  triole  •  £  • .  Now  the  occurrence 

of  the  rest  at  the  beginning  of  this  form  connects  it- 
self in  an  interesting  manner  with  the  circumstance 
that  Shakspere's  favorite  places  for  using  this  form  are : 
(i)  at  the  beginning  of  a  line  ;  and  (2)  at  the  beginning 
of  a  phrase,  just  after  the  rest  which  marks  off  the  pre- 
ceding phrase. 

The  fitness  of  such  places  for  this  sort  of  bar  may  be 
thus  explained. 

The  form     1    »  3  •       >    or    *l     ••    •      >    (which  we 

may  hereafter  use  quite  interchangeably)  presents  a 
curiously  plastic  bar  to  come  at  the  beginning  of  a  line 
because  it  can  be  made  by  the  ear  to  fit-on  to  the  end 
of  either  a  double-ending  run-on  line  or  an  end-stopped 
line  with  great  facility  by  means  of  the  vacant  place 
represented  by  the  1 .  For  example,  here  is  a  double- 
ending  line  out  of  Cymbeline,  running-on  to  a  line 
which  begins  with  this  form,  that  is,  with  the  first  sound 
accented : 

Perfumes  the  chamber  thus :  the  flame  o'  the  taper 
Bows  toward  her. 

Now  in  practice  the  last  sound  "-er"  of  "taper"  would 
here  be  put  in  the  place  of  the  1  which  begins  the 

1     *""*"% 
usual  form  of  such  a  bar  as  £        '    and  instead 

Bows    to- 

of  being  what  is  usually  called  the  "redundant  syllable" 
of  the  double-ending  line  "Perfumes  the  &c.  taper"  it 
would  be  the  unaccented  first  syllable  of  the  next  line, 
as  in  this  scheme  : 


Chaucer's  Lines  beginning  with  Rests.    219 


•} 

A 

A 

r) 

8 

t    f 

c  r 

Per-fumes 

the  chamb- 

s 

t  r  c 

per  Bows     to  - 

. 

c  r 

er  thus : 


C_f 


the  flame  o' 


the    ta   - 


Thus  after  a  run-on  line  with  a  double-ending,  the  next 
line  may  begin  upon  an  accented  syllable  —  instead  of 
upon  the  unaccented  syllable  always  beginning  a  typic 
line  of  blank  verse  —  with  peculiarly  dove-tailing  effect. 
Shakspere  is  evidently  fond  of  it,  and  we  find  many 
pairs  of  lines  for  which  the  scheme  just  given  would 
serve. 

On  the  other  hand,  in  beginning  the  line  after  an 


end-stopped  line,  the      in  the  form  1 


ft 


fur- 


nishes  the  proper  pause  which  the  voice  must  make  in 
ending  an  end-stopped  line,  — without  the  necessity  of 
slicing-off  a  part  of  the  time-value  of  the  last  sound 
in  the  final  bar  of  the  end-stopped-line  for  that  rest. 


Here  it  is  evident  that  the  "i  in  the  form  1 


r    t 


discharges  two  functions:  (i)  of  marking-off  the  line- 
group  or  phrase-group  which  precedes  it,  and  (2)  of 
accounting  to  the  ear  for  the  customary  unaccented  syl- 
lable which  precedes  every  accented  syllable  in  typic 
blank  verse. 

Chaucer  evidently  likes  to  set-off  with  this  form,  in 
beginning  a  tale,  or  a  stanza,  or  a  line.     The  prologue 


-j 

to  the  Canterbury  Tales  opens  with  it,  g 
the  first  tale,  The  Knight's  opens  with  it, 


f   8  f 

Whan  that 


220 


Science  of  English   Verse. 


Whil  -  om 


t   f 

as     old  - 


t  r 

e      sto   - 


ries    tell    - 


p  r 


the  Pardoner's  prologue  opens  with  it, 

.-.A  A  A  A 


r 


Lord-ynges, 


c  r 

quod  he, 


c  r 

in  chirch- 


t  r 

es  whan 


I  prech -  e 


many  lines  begin  with  it,  such  as,  in  the  Wife  of  Bath's 
tale, 


q  A^ 

81  f'C 

Kisse  me, 


A  A  A 

c  r    c  r    t  r 

quod  sche       we     be          no    leng  -    er  wroth  -  e 

Continuing  our  comparison  of  corresponding  bars  in 
the  typic  and  actual  schemes,  and  passing-over  bars 
2,  3,  4,  and  5  which  are  alike  in  both  :  we  come  to  bars 
6  and  7  which  reveal  one  of  Shakspere's  characteristic 
methods  of  disposing  of  the  rhythmic  accent.  Here 
the  accent  in  the  typic  line  would  fall  on  "  but : " 

7A 

f     f        but  the  rhythmus  of  common 

ous   but 

utterance,  such  as  any  one  would  unconsciously  use  in 
speaking  these  words,  makes  a  different  distribution  of 
the  time-values  in  each  of  these  bars  (as  Shakspere  well 
knew)  and  not  only  throws  the  whole  of  the  word  "-odi- 
ous "  into  the  6th  bar,  but  fills  up  the  place  of  "-ous" 
in  the  yth  bar  with  the  rest  "1,  at  the  same  time  slicing 

A 

off  part  of  the  *  in  the  typic  bar  for  another  rest  1,  thus 

leaving  "but,"  as  it  should  be,  unaccented  and  easily 
running  on  to  the  next  line,  —  so  easily,  in  fact,  that 
many  voices  —  perhaps  most  —  would  put  it  in  the  next 
line  entirely,  and  make  the  7th  bar  all  rest,  thus : 


6 

A 

t  CJ" 

as      o  -   di  - 


The  Rest  both  Rhythmic  and  Logical.    221 


6  

7 

•      000 

1 

U         tMMUOBi 

* 

as       o  -  di  -  ous 

i 

8 

n 

A 

A 

5  8  P 

X            X 

c 

f 

but   the  mist    - 

ress  which  &c 

This  rest  in  bar  7  is  here  of  great  importance  and  inter- 
est. We  had  occasion  in  discussing  the  line  "Than 
the  soft  myrtle  &c.,"  above,  to  observe  how  cunningly 
Shakspere  interposes  a  rest  in  the  body  of  the  line  at 
a  point  where  there  is  to  be  a  great  change  or  antithe- 
sis in  the  idea  —  where  indeed  many  writers  would 
punctuate  with  a  dash,  or  a  semicolon.  The  rest  here  is 
of  exactly  similar  logical  function  :  Ferdinand,  a  prince, 
set  by  Prospero  to  carrying  logs,  says  :  "  This,  my  mean 
task,  would  be  as  heavy  to  me  as  odious  "  —  here  how- 
ever the  image  of  Miranda  comes  to  him  ;  his  frown  of 
disgust  changes  to  the  rapturous  smile  of  love  ;  a  wholly 
antithetical  idea  is  to  be  expressed,  and  before  express- 
ing it,  Shakspere  inserts  the  rest  after  the  unaccented 
syllable  "-ous"  of  "odious"  just  as  for  the  same  pur- 
pose he  inserted  the  rest  after  the  unaccented  syllable 
"-tie  "of  "myrtle,"  —  "  but  the  mistress  which  I  serve 
quickens  what's  dead  &c."  The  rest,  therefore,  of  the 
7th  bar  discharges  both  the  logical  office  of  separating 
the  antithetic  clauses,  and  the  rhythmical  office  of  re- 
lieving "  but "  from  the  rhythmic  accent. 

Passing-over  bars  8  and  9  which  are  alike  in  both 
schemes,  we  come  to  bars  10  and  n  which  show  us  a 
third  method  of  Shakspere's  for  relieving  sounds  from 
the  rhythmic  accent  which  would  not  take  the  pronun- 
ciation-accent, herein  also  remembering  how  this  relief 


222  Science  of  English   Verse. 

is  given  in  ordinary  speech  and  applying  the  principle  in 
verse.     In  the  typic  bar  1 1  the  rhythmic  accent  would 


IO 


A 


fall  on  "-ens"  of    "quickens,"  H  *     • 


I    serve 


1 1 


A 


'  f 

quick-ens 


but  in  uttering  these  words,  the  reader  would  make  a 
different  distribution  of  the  time-values :  the  sound 
"serve"  —  which  is  a  good  sound  for  prolonging  with- 
out the  drawl  which  English  ears  hate  —  is  held-over 
into  the  next  bar  until  it  occupies  the  f  time-value  pre- 
viously occupied  by  "quick-;"  and  the  sound  "quick-," 
being  thus  relieved,  is  assigned  to  the  next  note  forward, 
which  is  the  accented  note,  while  its  other  sound  "-ens  " 

A 

is  given  to  the  third  eighth-note,  the  f  of  the  typic  bar 

being  broken  into  two  f  f  for  "quick"  and  "ens"  re- 
spectively. 

There  are  many  voices,  of  decisive  or  jerky  utterance, 
which  will  not  prolong  a  note  :  such  voices,  instead  of 
relieving  the  sound  "  quick "  as  above  by  a  prolonga- 
tion of  "  serve "  through  the  time  of  the  first  f  in  the 
"quickens"  bar,  would  give  "serve"  only  its  own  time 
and  simply  substitute  a  rest  **  for  that  f,  thus: 


IO 


A 


r 


I   serve 


II 

A 

1         f 


quick-ens 


&c. 


The  student  who  will  patiently  master  the  three 
methods  now  detailed  in  connection  with  (i)  bar  i,  (2) 
bars  6  and  7,  and  (3)  bars  10  and  n,  will  be  at  no  loss 
in  interpreting  Shakspere's  subtlest  dispositions  of  the 
rhythmic  accent.  Although  these  methods  may  appear 


Type  and  Variety  in   Verse.  223 

abstruse  at  first  to  those  unfamiliar  with  the  logic  of 
rhythmical  processes,  they  will  presently  become  en- 
tirely plain  :  they  are  indeed  the  most  familiar  phe- 
nomena in  music,  in  popular  poetry,  and  in  the  utter- 
ance used  for  ordinary  English  conversation,  nor  ought 
they  to  be  regarded  as  any  thing  more  than  the  mere 
A  B  C  of  English  verse.  They  would  not  be  so  re- 
garded if  it  were  not  for  certain  wide-spread  misconcep- 
tions which  have  resulted  in  blinding  many  persons  to 
the  vitally-important  distinction  between  type  and  vari- 
ety in  verse.  When  the  classic  prosodies  inform  us 
that  the  hexameter  consists  of  dactyls  and  spondees 
alternating  at  pleasure  except  that  the  last  foot  in  a 
line  must  always  be  a  spondee  and  the  next-last  always 
a  dactyl,  they  give  us  but  the  type  of  the  hexameter. 
The  actual  movement  of  a  Greek  or  Latin  reader's  voice 
in  delivering  Homer  or  Virgil  would  without  question 
exhibit  variations  of  the  type  analogous  .to  those  which 
have  just  been  discussed  in  Shakspere's  verse.  It  is 
likely  that  if  the  knowledge  of  classic  prosody  was  not 
so  often  confined  to  the  knowledge  of  the  classic  hex- 
ameter only,  these  misconceptions  as  to  the  type  might 
be  dissipated  by  facts  which  must  attract  the  attention 
of  all  thorough  students  of  forms  of  classic  verse  other 
than  the  hexameter.  For  example,  the  interposition  of 
the  rest  in  the  body  of  the  line,  and  the  relief  of  sylla- 
bles not  admitting  the  rhythmic  accent  by  the  various 
methods  just  detailed,  might  —  if  we  understood  familiar 
Greek  utterance  as  well  as  we  do  our  own  — easily  solve 
many  of  the  Greek  choruses  which  are  at  present  but 
rhythmic  confusion  ;  and  I  think  there  can  be  no  doubt 
that  these  choruses  are,  like  Shakspere's  verse,  an 
escape  out  of  the  rigidities  of  the  type  into  the  infinite 


224  Science  of  English   Verse. 

fields  of  those  subtle  rhythms  which  pervade  familiar 
utterance.  Thus,  approached  from  the  direction  of 
classic  prosody  —  and  often  from  that  of  only  so  much 
classic  prosody  as  is  involved  in  the  narrow  type  of  the 
hexameter — Shakspere's  verse  has  often  seemed  a 
mass  of  "license,"  of  "irregularity,"  and  of  lawless 
anomaly  to  commentators ;  while,  approached  from  the 
direction  of  that  great  rhythmic  sense  of  humanity  dis- 
played in  music,  in  all  manner  of  folk-songs,  and  in 
common  talk,  it  is  perfect  music. 

In  closing  this  necessarily  meagre  account  of  blank 
verse  it  is  interesting  to  note  that  the  prevalence  in 
English  poetry  of  the  iambus  —  which  is  the  basis  of 
blank  verse  —  had  already  attracted  attention  as  early 
as  the  third  quarter  of  the  i6th  century.  I  find  Webbe 
speaking  of  it,  in  his  Discourse :  "  The  naturall  course 
of  most  English  verses  seemeth  to  run  uppon  the  old 
Iambic  stroake,"  he  says.  Gascoigne,  in  his  Certayne 
Notes  of  Instruction,  also  refers  to  it:  "Commonly  now 
a  dayes  in  english  rimes  we  use  none  other  order  but  a 
foote  of  two  sillables,  whereof  the  first  is  depressed  or 
made  short,  and  the  second  is  elevate  or  made  long," 
i.e.  f  I*  ,  or  the  iambus  :  "  and  surely  I  can  lament " 
—  he  adds  —  "that  wee  are  fallen  into  such  a  playne 
and  simple  manner  of  wryting,  that  there  is  none  other 
foote  used  but  one." 

A  still  more  cunning  testimonial  to  the  exclusive 
prevalence  of  the  iambus  occurs  in  King  James's 
Reulis  &c.  for  verse  :  for  he  gives  no  "  Reulis  "  for  any 
other  kind !  as  if  he  were  unconscious  that  English 
verse  admitted  any  rhythm  besides  the  iambic.  His 
pithy  injunction  is  that  "your  first  syllable  in  the  lyne 
be  short,  the  second  lang." 


Schemes  of  ^.-Rhythm. 


225 


CHAPTER  VI. 

OF   4-RHYTHM,   GENERALLY  J    AND   SPECIALLY,    OF   ITS 
TWO    FORMS. 


THE  type  of  4-rhythm  is  g    *     *     *     * 
lish    verse    it    usually    occurs    under    the 


In  Eng- 
form     (i) 


ree 
t.ft 


,  or  the  less  common  form  (2) 


,  the  two  varieties  of   bar 


in  each  form  alternating  with  each  other  subject  to  no 
restriction  except  that  usually  the  variety       f       X 
in  form  (2)  terminates  the  line. 

(i)   The   form  (i)  g    f       f     f        f       f          is   the 

classic  dactyl  and  spondee.  The  dactyl  is  "one  long 
before  two  short,"  which  corresponds  with  f  f ;  and 
the  spondee  is  two  long,  which  corresponds  with  f  f. 

The  movement  of  this  rhythmus  in  English  is  well 
illustrated  by  the  following  old  Scotch  poem  : 


f.-1  f 

he ;     and 

r  * 


r .  r 

hame  came 

r   c  ' 

nae  horse  should 

It  is  of  great  importance  to  distinguish  this  f          * , 
the  true  classic  dactyl,  from  the  bar  which  is   usually 

•  >        060 

called  a  dactyl  in  English  verse,  o    £     £     U          The 


tr   t  t 

r   f  t 

Hame  came  my 

gude  -  man,  an* 

t  t  t-t 

r   r 

There  he    saw    a 

horse  where 

be. 


226  Science  of  English    Verse. 

two    lie    at   opposite   poles    of   rhythm,  the   former  — 

a    I         v     v      >  the  classic  dactyl — being  in  4-rhythm, 

3    *      *      f 

studied,  formal,  ponderous,  and  the  latter  g    p     p     p 

none  of  these,  but  capable  of  infinite  variety. 

This  confusion  has  arisen  from  what  was  called  the 
logacedic  dactyl.  If  we  should  utter  the  first  P  in 

t£    |         U     £  (the  classic    dactyl)  short,  as    might  well 

happen  in  rapid  speech  or  prose  (Greek  logos},  rather 
than  long  as  required  in  the  type  of  the  poem  or  song 
(Greek  aoide),  we  should  have  P  instead  of  P,  and 
P  P  P  instead  of  P  P  P  :  that  is  a  sort  of 

prose-song  (logos-aoide,  "logacedic")  dactyl,  or  loga- 
cedic dactyl. 

But  the  logacedic  dactyl  is  our  old  friend,  the  type  of 
3-rhythm,  familiar  in  English  verse  from  its  beginning 
to  the  present  time  :  while  the  4-rhythm  classic  dactyl 
is  exceedingly  scarce  in  English  verse.  The  "  hexam- 
eters "  which  were  made  by  Harvey  and  Webbe  in 
the  i6th  century,  and  those  in  which  Mr.  Longfellow's 
poem  Evangeline  is  written,  agree  with  the  classic 
hexameter  ojily  in  metre,  that  is,  in  having  6  bars  to 
the  line :  their  rhythm  is  totally  different  and  no  Eng- 
lish ear  could  tolerate  them  if  accurately  uttered  accord- 
ing to  the  classic  form  g  P  P  P 

This  form  of  4-rhythm  called  the  classic  dactyl, 
g  P  P  P  — dominating  old  epic  verse  almost  as 

o  A 

completely  as  the  form  of  3-rhythm,  g     •     •       ,  called 

the  iambus,  dominates  English  verse  —  reveals  to  us  a 


4- Rhythm,   Greek:  j- Rhythm,  English.    227 

remarkable  difference  in  the  rhythmic  bent  or  genius  of 
English  people  as  compared  with  Greek  and  Latin 
people.  The  classic  dactyl  has  the  ponderous  pulse  of 
march-time :  the  iambus  has  the  swing  of  a  waltz. 
The  awful  second  movement  in  Beethoven's  Seventh 
Symphony  —  a  movement  in  which  he  seems  to  have 
had  in  his  mind  the  inexorable  march  of  the  human 
race  from  the  mystery  of  birth  to  the  mystery  of  death, 
the  march  from  the  tomb  to  the  tomb,  f'x  rv^oto  tat 
tv^ov  —  has  its  important  subject  in  exactly  this 
rhythm  of  the  classic  dactyls  and  spondees  : 


in  which  grim  regularity  presides  like  the  changeless 
fate  in  a  Greek  tragedy. 

The  next  movement  of  this  symphony  has  its  opening 
subject,  on  the  contrary,  in  the  rapid  swing  of  a  very 
light  form  of  3-rhythm,  nearly  akin  to  the  iambus. 
This  subject  has  been  already  given. 

Perhaps  the  reader  will  sufficiently  understand  the 
possibilities  of  this  form  of  4-rhythm  in  English  verse 
upon  analyzing  the  following  fervent  ballad  of  Jean 
Ingelow's.  I  give  the  scheme  for  the  first  stanza  :  the 
student  should  then  make  a  scheme  for  the  other  three 
stanzas  according  to  this  general  type,  — for  which  pur- 
pose the  entire  poem  is  subjoined. 


228 


Science  of  English   Verse. 


SCHEME  OF   FIRST  STANZA  OF   LIKE  A  LAVEROCK 
IN  THE   LIFT. 

4   ,' 

8  f 

It's 


r     P  P 

we            two,  it's 

r    c  c 

we     two,  it's 

r    P  P 

we        two  for 

r  x 

aye, 

P  P  P  P 

All     the  world  and 

r    c  p 

we       two.and 

P  PP  P 

Hea-venbeour 

f      X 
stay. 

p  p  ci? 

Like    a     lav-er-ock 

p  P  r 

in    the    lift, 

P  P  P  P 

sing,O  bon-ny 

0       v 
bride  ! 

P   P   C   * 

P  P  P  P 

r    P  P 

r  x 

All    the  world  was 

Adam  once  with 

Eve        by  his 

side. 

LIKE   A   LAVEROCK   IN   THE    LIFT. 

It's  we  two,  it's  we  two,  it's  we  two  for  aye, 
All  the  world  and  we  two,  and  Heaven  be  our  stay. 
Like  a  laverock  in  the  lift,  sing,  O  bonny  bride ! 
All  the  world  was  Adam  once,  with  Eve  by  his  side. 

What's  the  world,  my  lass,  my  love  —  what  can  it  do  ? 
I  am  thine,  and  thou  art  mine :  life  is  sweet  and  new. 
If  the  world  have  missed  the  mark,  let  it  stand  by ; 
For  we  two  have  gotten  leave,  and  once  more  we'll  try. 

Like  a  laverock  in  the  lift,  sing,  O  bonny  bride ! 
It's  we  two,  it's  we  two,  happy  side  by  side. 
Take  a  kiss  from  me,  thy  man ;  now  the  song  begins, 
All  is  made  afresh  for  us,  and  the  brave  heart  wins. 

When  the  darker  days  come,  and  no  sun  will  shine, 
Thou  shalt  dry  my  tears,  lass,  and  I'll  dry  thine. 
It's  we  two,  it's  we  two,  while  the  world's  away, 
Sitting  by  the  golden  sheaves  on  our  wedding  day. 

1  A  piece  of  music  quite  as  commonly  as  otherwise  begins  with  part  of  a  bar,  often 
the  last  note  of  a  bar.  This  scheme  does;  the  single  note  of  such  a  beginning  is  called  the 
Anacrusis. 


Comic  Form  of  ^-Rhythm. 


229 


(2)  The  number  of  bars  of  the  form  $    f     f     f     f 
in  the  last  scheme,  though  the  general   prevalence  of 
the   dactyl-form   g    P       f     f        classes    it   with    that 

species,  shows  how  easily  these  two  run  into  each  other. 
In  fact  it  is  merely  a  division  for  convenience  of  dis- 
cussion, —  to  treat  these  as  separate  forms. 

The  student  cannot  too  carefully  observe,  however, 

that  a  large  predominance  of  the  form  $    \>     [>     v     v 

inevitably  produces  a  comic  effect.  This  is  indeed  the 
rhythm  which  humorous  verse-makers  in  English  find 
most  to  their  hand.  For  example  : 

t  I  t  =     |     •  ' 

hist  -  o  -    ry 

t   t   t  = 

Myst-er  -  y 

t   t   t 


An 


En 


Has 


tt   tt 

en -ter- tain-ing 

t    '      '    ' 
ti-tled  "  Saul  a 


tt   tt 

re-cent  -  ly  been 


t 

pub-lished  by  the 


t   t  t  t 

Rev'rend  Arthur 


Coxe 


The  foregoing  scheme  is  purposely  arranged  to  illus- 
trate the  custom  of  sometimes  noting  a  given  rhythm 
by  using  the  anacrusis,  or  last  note  of  the  preceding  bar, 
to  begin  each  line.  This  method  is  used  to  preserve 
the  line-arrangement  of  the  verse:  in  the  scheme  just 
given,  each  line  of  the  scheme  corresponds  with  a  line 
of  the  verse,  which  is  arranged  as  follows  : 

An  entertaining  history 
Entitled  "  Saul,  A  Mystery," 
Has  recently  been  published  by  the  Reverend  Arthur  Coxe,  &c. 

1  Each  of  these  lines  is  here  written  as  beginning  with  an  anacrusis.  The  notation 
might  be  different.  It  is  a  matter  not  of  principle  but  of  convenience.  The  advantages  of 
each  method  are  presently  set  forth.  The  anacrusis  of  every  line  except  the  first  is  seen 
to  belong  to  the  last  bar  of  the  preceding  line,  of  which  last  bar  it  is  the  fourth  *. 


230 


Science  of  English   Verse. 


But  the  same  object  could  be  better  accomplished  by 
discarding  the  anacrusis  entirely.  The  first  sound  "An  " 
is  unaccented;  the  second  "en-"  is  accented;  taking 
the  sounds  therefore  by  fours — for  this  is  4-rhythm  — 
and  accenting  the  second  unit  of  each  bar,  the  scheme 
when  exactly  written  would  be  as  follows : 


A 

A 

ttlt 

An  ent-er-tain- 

t   t   t   t 

ing  hist  -  o  -   ry 

A 

A 

t  t  t    t 

En  -  titled  "Saul 

A 

t   t   t   t 

,    A  Myst  -  er  -  y 

A 

A 

A 

ttt    t 

Has  re-cent  -  ly 

0000 

L/     \>     I/     C 

been  pub-lished  by 

'    '    *    t 

the  Rev'rend  Ar- 

•  r  - 

thurCoxe,  &c 

It  is  of  advantage  to  use  this  last  method,  as  most 
exact,  whenever  the  lines  invariably,  or  nearly  always, 
begin  with  one  unaccented  syllable,  as  in  blank  verse 
where  the  student  will  observe  it  has  been  adopted. 
The  only  disadvantage  of  it  is  that  many  routine  musi- 
cians are  so  accustomed  to  look  for  the  accented  note 
at  the  beginning  of  the  bar  that  to  find  the  second  unit 
of  every  bar  accented  is  perplexing.  This  is,  of  course, 
mere  matter  of  habit.  In  beating  time  for  the  orches- 
tra the  director  always  makes  a  down-beat  for  the  first 
note,  or  accented  unit,  of  the  bar:  in  interpreting  a 
rhythmus  like  that  of  blank  verse,  or  of  the  scheme  just 
given,  where  the  second  unit  is  accented,  all  that  is 
necessary  is  to  make  the  down-beat  on  the  accented 
note  —  that  is,  the  second  unit  —  instead  of  the  first. 
Of  course  it  is  easily  seen  that  by  writing  blank  verse 
with  the  first  unaccented  note  as  an  anacrusis,  thus : 


Disadvantage  of  Anacrusis. 


231 


Na  - 


r 


varre  shall 


r 

be 


r  p 

lit  -  tie 


r  c 

Ac  -  a    - 


r 

deme, 


we  can  bring  the  accented  note  to  the  first  place  in  each 
bar,  as  customary  in  music.     But  (i)  this  changes  the 


form  of   each    bar  from   the  iambus 


to   the 


trochee  P  P  ;  and  (2)  makes  each  line  begin  with 
the  anacrusis,  as  if  a  new  scheme ;  and,  (3)  what  is 
worst  of  all,  results  in  the  fact  that  the  bar  of  the 
scheme  does  not  represent  the  real  bar  of  the  verse,  the 
former  being  in  this  case  a  trochaic  bar  while  the  bar 
of  blank  verse  is  always  distinctively  an  iambic  bar. 
But,  after  this  digression,  I  wish  to  return  to  the 

comical  effect  of  the  rhythmic  form  tj  P  P  P  P 
when  largely  predominating  over  the  equivalent  form 
g  P  P  P  m  a  poem,  for  the  purpose  of  warning 
the  student  against  using  it  except  in  a  very  careful 
way.  Perhaps  this  warning  may  be  most  effectually 
conveyed  through  a  scheme  of  the  following  piece  of 
anonymous  newspaper  verse  in  which  a  most  tragical 
sentiment  is  attempted  to  be  conveyed  in  a  rhythm 

almost   entirely  composed    of  t£    P     f     P     P        bars. 

The  particular  arrangement  here  adopted  happens  to  be 
the  rhythmus  not  only  of  the  famous  Pinafore  song 


4 

8 


t 


c  t  t  t  t  t  t  t  r  r 

nev  -  er  thought  o"     think  -  in'    for  my  -    self      at 


all! 


but  also  of  the  most  popular  dance  of  the  negro-minstrels, 

A  A 

preserving   even    the  vigorous  slam    •       •        P      S 
at  the  end  of  the  strain  where  the  dancer  brings  the 


232 


Science  of  English   Verse. 


entire  sole  of  his  foot  down  on  the  board  with  all  the 
possible  leverage  of  his  leg,  to  the  delight  of  the  ground- 
lings, his  shuffle  being  of  the  exact  form 


8  J     C 

Tick  -  y 


t 


' 


tack  -  y  -  tick  -  y 


MM 

tack  -y  -  tick  -  y 


r 


slam  bam 


The  scheme  of  the  first  stanza  is  here  given. 


r 


Bam  ! 


A   SLAIN    LOVE. 


|c  c1 

MM 

r    c  c 

r   r 

r  « 

Ah  the 

au-  tumn    days  fade 

out,         and  the 

nights  grow 

chill 

=c  c 

*  c  c  * 

X       V     V     V 

r   r 

r  = 

And  we 

walk  no    more  to- 

geth-er    as  we 

used       of 

yore 

=  C  u 

MM 

M  P  C 

c  :  M 

r  = 

When  the 

rose  was    new    in 

blos-som  and  the 

sun  was  on  the 

hill, 

=c  c 

MM 

C  f  f  * 

C  C  M 

r  = 

And  the 

eyes  were  sweet  -  ly 

vo-cal  with  the 

hap-py  whip-poor 

-will, 

P  C 

MM 

M  C  C 

r    r 

r  x 

And  the 

land-breeze  piped  its 

sweet-est  by  the 

o    -     cean 

shore. 

It  is  worth  noting  that  this  rhythmus  which  is  so 
absurd  in  the  comic  song  and  the  plantation  dance 
differs  but  in  minor  particulars  from  the  form 

^|        v     v     \  which  Beethoven  selected  for 

the  most  reverend  and  pathetic  of  all  his  works,  and 
which  constitutes  the  grave  rhythmic  movement  of  the 
Iliad,  of  the  ^neid,  and  of  Lucretius'  De  Natura  Rerum. 

1  An  anacrusis  of  two  notes  instead  of  one.    The  anacrusis  is  only  the  remainder  of 
a  broken  bar,  and  may  be  as  many  sounds  as  the  bar  will  contain,  lacking  one. 

2  The  mark  =  denotes  that  the  bar  is  broken,  its  remainder  being  found  at  the  begin- 
ning of  the  next  line,  as  anacrusis. 


Phrase  -  Groups.  233 


CHAPTER  VII. 

OF  THE  THIRD  AND  FOURTH  ORDERS  OF  RHYTHMIC 
GROUPING. 

THE  subject  of  secondary  rhythm,  or  that  species  of 
sound-groups  called  the  bar,  has  now  been  presented, 
in  the  discussion  of  the  two  great  types  of  such  group- 
ing, 3-rhythm  and  4-rhythm,  with  their  respective  subor- 
dinate forms.  We  therefore  come  to  the  next  order  of 
rhythmic  groups  which  was  called  tertiary  rhythm. 
This,  as  explained  in  the  general  outline  which  preceded 
the  more  special  discussions,  is  a  grouping  together  not 
of  individual  verse-sounds,  but  of  bars,  which  are  already 
groups  of  such  sounds.  It  is,  in  other  words,  a  grouping 
of  groups.  And  inasmuch  as  these  phrase-groups  are 
mostly  not  so  large  as  those  which  we  call  the  line,  they 
may  be  termed  of  the  third  order,  while  the  line-group 
of  bars  may  be  termed  of  the  fourth  order. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  repeat  here  the  explanation 
given  of  the  manner  in  which  the  phrase-groups,  the 
alliterative  groups  and  the  logical-accent  groups  are 
marked  off  for  the  ear.  And  the  illustrations  which 
have  been  incidentally  given  in  the  various  schemes 
already  presented  will  perhaps  sufficiently  acquaint  the 
student  with  the  manner  in  which  these  minor  groups 
are  made  to  relieve  the  possible  monotony  which  might 
result  from  the  invariable  equality  of  bar  with  bar,  and 
from  the  usual  equality  of  line  with  line,  in  point  of 
their  time-value.  In  the  manner  of  using  this  third 


234  Science  of  English   Verse. 

order  of  groups  I  do  not  think  it  well  for  the  student  to 
pay  any  attention  to  models  beyond  such  as  is  necessary 
to  understand  the  philosophy  of  the  technical  processes 
involved.  The  phrase-group,  the  logical  group,  the 
alliterative  group,  —  these  are  matters  of  the  subtlest 
individuality ;  it  is  in  these  that  each  writer  must  show 
the  stuff  of  his  own  ego:  in  other  matters  of  rhythm 
—  the  bar,  the  line  —  Shakspere  and  the  anonymous 
newspaper  versifier  are  alike  confined  by  certain  fixities  ; 
but  these  irregular  groupings  of  the  third  order  let 
down  the  bars  and  turn  Pegasus  out  into  the  universe. 

Considering  the  nature  and  function  of  these  irregular 
groups  therefore  to  have  been  sufficiently  explained, 
and  leaving  students  to  work  their  own  wills  therein, 
without  meddling  with  models,  we  may  now  pass  to  the 

FOURTH    ORDER    OF    SOUND-GROUPS  —  THE    LINE. 

The  ear  may  co-ordinate  one  bar  with  more  than  one ; 
two  bars  with  two  or  more  than  two  ;  three  with  three 
or  more ;  and  so  on  :  and  to  this  extent  it  may  be  said 
that  a  line  may  consist  of  any  number  of  bars. 

But  the  practice  of  English  verse  is  to  use  (very 
rarely)  two,  (less  rarely)  three,  (very  commonly)  four, 
(most  commonly)  five,  sometimes  six,  seven,  or  eight, 
bars  to  the  line.  In  other  words  the  line,  in  English 
verse,  usually  ranges  between  the  limits  of  two  and 
eight  bars,  with  a  very  great  majority  of  four-bar  and 
five-bar  lines. 

It  has  been  before  explained  that  the  term  metre  has 
come  to  be  associated,  in  a  connection  very  familiar  to 
all  English-speaking  persons,  with  the  number  of  bars 
in  a  line,  the  hymn-book  usually  describing  a  given 
hymn  or  psalm  as  common  metre,  long  metre,  &c.  This 


Rhythm  without  Line -Groups.          235 

term  seems  therefore  well  enough  established  to  war- 
rant its  use  as  the  peculiar  designation  of  the  line-group. 
"3-rhythm,  iambic,  5  metre"  for  example  would  fully 
connote  all  the  rhythmic  phenomena  of  blank  verse ; 
and  so  on,  the  first  term  in  such  combinations  always 
referring  to  the  rhythm  (trochee  f  j* 


iambus 


t  r 


,)  and  the  latter  figure  to  the  metre. 


It  has  been  already  explained  how,  in  Shakspere's 
later  dramatic  dialogues  especially,  the  line-group  is 
often  obliterated  for  the  ear,  either  by  run-on  lines 
which  carry  over  the  separating  pause  into  the  body  of 
the  next  line,  or  by  phrase-groups  which  insert  pauses 
within  the  body  of  the  line.  A  great  prevalence  of 
run-on  lines  renders  this  obliteration  so  complete  that, 
as  remarked  in  the  general  outline,  verse  so  treated  is 
practically  without  metre,  or  line-grouping.  I  am 
strongly  inclined  to  believe  that  English  poetry  might 
be  a  great  gainer  if  we  would  at  once  frankly  recognize 
this  rhythmic  but  unmetric  verse  as  a  strictly-rhythm- 
ized  prose,  and  print  it  as  such  without  the  decep- 
tive line-division.  Particularly  in  using  the  rhythm 

O       0         £         0         &  £ 

g    U     t/      U  V       in  English  verse  a  certain  fini- 

calness  attaches  to  a  regularity  of  line-grouping :  while 
if  it  be  employed  without  lines,  but  merely  in  great 
masses  of  unlined  prose,  the  effect  is  noble  in  the  high- 
est degree.  A  development  of  English  rhythm  lies,  I 
feel  sure,  in  this  direction. 

The  habit  of  placing  the  rhyme  —  when  rhyme  is  used 
—  most  commonly  at  the  end  of  the  line  has  made  the 
rhyme  a  distinctive  feature  of  the  line-group  for  the  ear, 
in  English  verse.  Of  course  the  rhyme  could  be  placed 


236  Science  of  English   Verse. 

—  and  sometimes  is,  as  in  Poe's  Raven  —  at  other  points 
in  the  line :  and  there  is  no  reason  for  placing  it  at  the 
end  except  the  rhythmic  function  which  it  then  dis- 
charges —  of  marking-off  for  the  ear  each  rhythmic 
group  of  bars  comprehended  in  each  line. 

This  purely  rhythmic  office  of  rhyme  does  not  seem  to 
have  occurred  to  Puttenham  and  several  of  his  fellow- 
critics  in  the  i6th  century,  who  were  in  the  habit  of 
using  the  term  "rhyme"  as  the  very  antithesis  of 
"  rhythm."  A  strong  party  had  grown  up  in  Putten- 
ham's  time  who  were  for  doing  away  with  "rhyme,"  in 
favor  of  "  rhythm,"  the  latter  being  treated  as  a  term 
referring  to  blank  verse  or  to  English  hexameters.  Of 
course  the  contempt  which  some  of  them  felt  for 
"  rhyme"  was  due  as  much  to  the  abuse  of  it  which  had 
been  made  by  finical  poetasters  as  to  their  unconscious- 
ness of  the  rhythmic  powers  of  rhyme.  If  a  line-group 
is  to  be  marked-off  for  the  ear  —  and  such  a  group  is 
marked-off  by  every  end-stopped  line  — there  is  certainly 
no  reason  in  the  nature  of  things  why  it  should  not  be 
marked-off  with  rhymes,  as  well  as  with  mere  rests  :  the 
rhyme  marks  it  off  quite  as  clearly  and  more  agreeably, 
by  being  itself  an  independent  source  of  pleasure  to  the 
ear ;  just  as  one  might  mark-off  the  miles  of  a  road  with 
marble  statues  instead  of  ordinary  mile-stones,  the 
statues  at  once  discharging  the  function  of  mile-markers 
(that  is,  the  rhythmic  function)  and  of  pleasure-givers 
on  their  own  account  to  the  eye.  In  this  connection 
it  is  interesting  to  find  the  word  "rhyme"  used  for 
"  rhythm "  before  Puttenham.  Ormin  (also  called 
"  Orm  "),  writing  probably  early  in  the  I3th  century, 
says,  in  dedicating  The  Ormulmn  to  his  brother  Walter, 


Poulter's  Measure.  237 

Ic  hafe  sett  her  o  thiss  boc 
/  have  set  here  in  this  book 

Amang  Godspelless  wordess, 
Among   Gospel's      words 

All   thurrh     me  sellfenn,  manig       word 
All  through  my     self,      many  (a)  word 

The  rime  swa  to  fillenn. 
The  rime  so    to  fill : 

and  inasmuch  as  rhymes  occur  only  here  and  there  while 
the  rhythm  of  the  poem  is  skilfully  carried  out  every- 
where, he  must  mean  that  he  has  set  here  in  this  book 
many  a  word  to  fill  the  rhythm. 

The  subject  of  rhyme  as  rhyme  —  that  is,  as  a  pleas- 
ure of  the  ear  dependent  on  tone-color  and  unconnected 
with  rhythm  —  is  treated  in  Part  III.  under  the  title 
"Colors  of  English  Verse." 

Since  the  i6th  century  the  favorite  lines  of  English 
verse  have  been  almost  entirely  4's  and  5's.  During 
that  century,  however,  a  great  deal  of  poetry  was  writ- 
ten in  the  long  I2's  and  14*5,  as  they  were  called  from 
the  number  of  syllables  in  alternate  lines,  like  the  fol- 
lowing lines  of  Queen  Elizabeth's  poem  (notice  the 
pause  in  the  middle  of  the  first  line  and  of  every  alter- 
nate line  thereafter,  which  Puttenham  comically  calls  a 
"  Cesure  ") : 

The  fear  of  future  foes,  exiles  my  present  joy, 

And  wit  me  warnes  to  shun  such  snares  as  threaten  mine  annoy. 

This  was  called  "  poulter's  measure,"  as  Gascoigne 
quaintly  informs  us,  because  the  "poulters,"  in  selling, 
were  in  the  habit  of  giving  twelve  for  the  first  dozen 
and  fourteen  for  the  next,  and  so  on. 


238  Science  of  English   Verse. 

Other  sorts  of  lines  had  acquired  special  designations 
at  this  time.  Puttenham  calls  the  metre  in  which  the 
Canterbury  Tales  are  written  "  Riding  Rime,"  and  that 
of  Chaucer's  Troylus  and  Cryseyde  "  meetre  Heroicall." 
Gascoigne  and  others  term  "  Rithme  Royall  "  the  stanza 
in  which  each  verse  —  their  "verse"  here  meaning  our 
"line" — has  "tenne  sillables,  and  seven  such  verses 
make  a  staffe  "  (stanza),  "  whereof  the  first  and  thirde 
lines  do  awnswer  (acrosse)  in  like  terminations  and 
rime,  the  second,  fourth,  and  fifth  do  likewise  answere 
eche  other  .  .  .  and  the  two  last  do  combine  and  shut 
up  the  sentence."  It  is  the  stanza  of  Chaucer's  Troylus 
and  Cryseyde,  and  of  King  James's  The  King's  Qiihair. 


Various  Stanza  -  Groups.  239 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

OF   THE    FIFTH    ORDER    OF    RHYTHMIC    GROUPS.  —  THE 
STANZA. 

As  the  line  is  a  group  of  smaller  groups  (or  bars),  so 
the  stanza  is  a  group  of  the  line-groups. 

A  stanza —  often  called  a  "  verse  "  in  the  common 
speech  of  the  present  day  —  may  be  a  group  of  two, 
three,  or  any  number  of  lines,  in  English  verse.  Per- 
haps I  should  say  in  English  verse  since  the  i6th  cen- 
tury :  for  it  is  evident  that  Puttenham  had  never  seen 
stanzas  of  two  or  of  three  lines.  He  says :  "  The 
shortest  staffe  " — by  staffe  he  means  stanza  —  "con- 
teineth  not  under  foure  verses,"  ' —  using  "verses  "in 
its  classic  sense  as  lines. 

But  we  have  poems  in  stanzas  of  two  lines,  as  Tenny- 
son's Locksley  Hall,  of  which  the  first  stanza  is, 

Comrades,  leave  me  here  a  little,  while  as  yet  'tis  early  morn ; 
Leave  me  here,  and  when  you  want  me,  sound  upon  the  bugle  horn. 

And  we  have  poems  in  stanzas  of  three  lines,  as  Tenny- 
son's The  Two  Voices,  of  which  the  first  stanza  is, 

A  still  small  voice  spake  unto  me, 
"  Thou  art  so  full  of  misery, 
Were  it  not  better  not  to  be  ?  " 

or  as  Miss  A.  C.  Thompson's  perfect  little  Song  of  the 
Night  at  Dawn,  of  which  the  first  stanza  is, 

1  Arte  of  English  Poesie,  p.  79,  Arber  Reprint. 


240  Science  of  English   Verse. 

Whither  shall  I  run 
Till  the  set  of  sun, 
Till  the  day  be  done  ? 

Besides  these  we  have  poems  in  stanzas  of  four  lines, 
too  common  to  need  illustration  ;  of  five  lines,  as  Ten- 
nyson's On  a  Mourner ;  of  six  lines  as  Shakspere's 
Venus  and  Adonis  ;  of  seven  lines,  as  Chaucer's  Troylus 
and  Cryseyde,  or  Shakspere's  Lucrece ;  of  eight  lines,  as 
Tennyson's  Charge  of  the  Light  Brigade  ;  of  nine  lines, 
as  Spenser's  Faery  Qtieen  ;  and  so  on. 

The  Faery  Queen  by  the  way  was  not  known  to  Put- 
tenham,  whose  quaint  argument  against  five  lines  to  the 
stanza  would  apply  equally  well  to  the  nine-lined 
stanzas  of  that  poem  :  "  A  staffe  of  five  verses,"  he  says, 
meaning  a  stanza  of  five  lines,  "  is  not  much  used  be- 
cause he  that  can  not  comprehend  his  periode  in  foure 
verses,  will  rather  drive  it  into  six  then  "  (than)  "leave 
it  in  five,  for  that  the  even  number  is  more  agreable  to 
the  eare  then  the  odde  is." 

We  are  therefore  practically  without  limitation  as  to 
the  number  of  lines  in  any  stanza  of  English  verse. 

There  is  however  one  form  of  stanza  which  has  re- 
mained a  strictly-specialized  form  ever  since  its  intro- 
duction into  English  by  Surrey  and  Wyatt  in  the  earlier 
part  of  the  i6th  century,  and  which,  as  such  a  strictly- 
specialized  form,  as  well  as  by  virtue  of  its  remarkable 
fitness  for  particular  purposes,  must  claim  separate 
mention  under  the  present  head.  This  is  the  form 
known  as 

THE    SONNET. 

The  sonnet  is  always  one  stanza  of  fourteen  lines. 
These  lines  are  iambic  5's,  rhymed  according  to  fixed 
rules.  Of  these  rules  there  are  two  sets,  governing 


Italian,  or  Legitimate ',  Sonnet.          241 

respectively  (i)  the  Italian,  or  Legitimate,  sonnet,  and 
(2)  the  English,  or  Illegitimate,  sonnet. 

(i)  The  Italian  sonnet  is  so  called  from  the  fact  that 
this  form  of  stanza  was  imported  into  our  language  from 
the  Italian  ;  and  the  synonymous  term  "  legitimate  "  is 
applied  to  it  because  soon  after  its  introduction  another 
form  of  fourteen-lined  stanza  began  to  be  used  in  which 
the  succession  of  rhymes  was  different  in  order  from 
that  authorized  by  the  Italian  laws  for  this  sort  of 
verse ;  and  to  distinguish  the  two  one  was  called  the 
Italian,  or  Legitimate,  the  other  the  English  or  Illegiti- 
mate, sonnet.  The  Italian  is  often  called,  also,  the 
"  Strict "  form  of  the  sonnet. 

The  order  of  rhymes  in  the  Italian,  legitimate,  or 
strict,  sonnet  may  be  gathered  from  the  following  beau- 
tiful example  of  this  species  of  poem  by  Sir  Thomas 
Wyatt.  The  order  as  to  the  first  eight  lines  is  always 
that  presented  in  this  poem  :  but  the  last  six  lines  may 
be  varied  in  the  order  of  their  rhymes  so  far  as  to  rhyme 
either  in  couplets  or  triplets,  and  so  far  as  to  allow  the 
rhymes  to  be  either  successive,  alternate,  or  three  apart. 
The  first  eight  lines  of  this  Italian  sonnet  are  often 
called  the  "  major  portion,"  and  the  last  six  lines  the 
"minor  portion;"  we  find  the  major  portion  often 
separated,  in  printing,  from  the  minor  portion,  by  a 
space ;  and  some  have  even  gone  so  far  as  to  hold  that 
there  should  be  a  certain  change  of  sentiment  on  pass- 
ing from  the  major  portion  to  the  minor  portion.  This 
seems,  however,  to  be  a  somewhat  finical  regulation, 
and  without  any  particular  authority.  It  may  be  re- 
marked, however,  that  every  sonnet,  whether  legitimate 
or  illegitimate,  ought  to  be  really  a  little  drama,  with 
every  idea  in  every  line  converging  directly  upon  some 


242  Science  of  English   Verse. 

special  idea  in  the  last  two  lines,  like  rays  of  light  into 
a  focus.  A  good  sonnet  should  always  therefore  be 
read  with  a  certain  suspension  of  the  reader's  thought 
until  the  end  is  reached,  and  the  end  should  always 
throw  back  a  new  and  comprehensive  interest  upon  all 
that  precedes  it. 

SIR   THOMAS   WYATT'S   "NOLI    ME    TANGERE " ' 
SONNET. 

MAJOR   PORTION. 

First  Qtiatrain, 

Who  list  to  hunt  ?     I  know  where  is  an  hind 
But  as  for  me,  alas,  I  may  no  more, 
The  vain  travail  hath  wearied  me  so  sore ; 
I  am  of  them  that  furthest  come  behind. 

Second  Quatrain. 

Yet  may  I  by  no  means  my  wearied  mind 
Draw  from  the  deer  ;  but,  as  she  fleeth  afore, 
Fainting  I  follow.     I  leave  off,  therefore, 
Since  in  a  net  I  seek  to  hold  the  wind. 

MINOR  PORTION. 

Who  list  her  hunt,  I  put  him  out  of  doubt, 
As  well  as  I,  may  spend  his  time  in  vain ; 
And,  graven  with  diamonds  in  letters  plain, 
There  is  written  her  fair  neck  round  about  : 
"  Noli  me  tangere  ;  for  Caesar's  I  am, 
And  wilde  for  to  hold,  though  I  seem  tame." 

Here  it  is  seen  that  in  the  major  portion  the  1st,  4th, 
5th,  and  8th  lines  rhyme  together,  and  the  2nd,  3rd,  6th 
and  /th  lines  rhyme  together ;  while  in  the  minor  por- 
tion the  first  four  lines  present  alternate  rhymes,  and 
the  last  two  make  a  couplet. 

1  It  has  been  thought  that  Wyatt  loved  Anne  Boleyn,  and  wrote  this 
sonnet  with  cunning  hints  as  to  his  dangerous  rival  Henry  VIII. 


English^  or  Illegitimate,  Sonnet.         243 

(2)  The  English,  illegitimate,  or  free,  sonnet  pre- 
serves all  the  strictness  of  the  Italian  so  far  as  concerns 
the  law  of  fourteen  iambic  5's ;  but  has  its  rhymes  in 
the  order  displayed  by  the  following  sonnet  of  Henry 
Howard,  Earl  of  Surrey,  the  co-worker  of  Wyatt  in 
introducing  this  species  of  verse  into  English.  This 
sonnet  is  a  translation  from  one  of  Petrarch's. 

Love,  that  liveth  and  reigneth  in  my  thought, 

That  built  his  seat  within  my  captive  breast, 
Clad  in  the  arms  wherein  with  me  he  fought, 

Oft  in  my  face  he  doth  his  banner  rest: 
She  that  me  taught  to  love  and  suffer  pain, 

My  doubtful  hope  and  eke  my  hot  desire 
With  shamefaced  cloak  to  shadow  and  restrain, 

Her  smiling  grace  converteth  straight  to  ire  : 
And  coward  Love  then  to  the  heart  apace 

Taketh  his  flight,  whereas  he  lurks  and  plains 
His  purpose  lost,  and  dare  not  show  his  face. 

For  my  lord's  guilt,  thus  faultless,  bide  I  pains. 
Yet  from  my  lord  shall  not  my  foot  remove : 
Sweet  is  his  death  that  takes  his  end  by  love  ! 

This  form  of  the  sonnet  has  become  sacred  to  all  seri- 
ous people  since  the  heavenly  series  of  private  prayers 
and  confessions  which  Shakspere  whispered  in  it. 

THE    SONNET    IN    ENGLISH    POETRY. 

For  this  purpose,  the  sonnet  has  come  to  be  an 
acknowledged  and  set  method  in  English.  During  the 
last  three  hundred  years,  whenever  an  English  poet  has 
had  any  personal  and  holy  matters  which  he  could  not 
refrain  from  putting  into  form,  he  has  mostly  adopted 
the  sonnet  —  one  or  other  species  of  it  —  for  that  form. 
Each  sonnet  is  like  a  letter  from  the  poet  to  you, 
marked  "  confidential "  at  the  top.  Of  this  personal 


244  Science  of  English   Verse. 

nature  are  many  beautiful  series  of  sonnets  in  English  : 
those  of  Wyatt  and  Surrey;  Constable's  To  Diana; 
Griffin's  To  Fides  sa  ;  Dray  ton's,  called  Ideas;  Daniel's, 
To  Delia;  Habington's,  To  Castara ;  Drummond's, 
to  his  Beloved  who  died  before  their  marriage ;  Spen- 
ser's Amoretti,  to  his  Beloved;  with  many  separate 
ones,  of  Donne,  Milton,  Wordsworth,  Keats,  Mrs.  Brown- 
ing, Tennyson,  Longfellow,  Gray,  Allingham,  Rossetti, 
Bryant,  Taylor,  Boker,  Hayne,  Timrod,  Mrs.  Kemble, 
Gilder,  and  others.  It  is  curious  to  observe  that  some 
have  nearly  approached  poethood  in  the  sonnet  who 
have  remained  hopelessly  below  it  in  other  forms,  par- 
ticularly certain  Elizabethans,  whose  longer  works  were 
diluted  beyond  the  point  of  poetry  by  a  wordiness  — 
the  besetting  literary  sin  of  the  i6th  century  —  which 
could  not  be  indulged  within  the  limits  of  a  sonnet. 

Above  all  works  in  this  kind  are  Shakspere's  son- 
nets, of  which  the  first  one  hundred  and  twenty-six  are 
revelations  of  friendship,  and  the  last  twenty-eight  of  a 
curious  sort  of  love.  Of  course,  to  the  young  student 
these  sonnets  must  be  mostly  dark  ;  but  to  the  older 
soul  they  become  as  light  itself ;  and  perhaps  it  might 
be  said  without  strain  that  one's  love  and  reverence  for 
Shakspere's  sonnets  and  one's  delight  in  them  may 
fairly  be  taken  as  a  gauge  of  the  exaltation  of  one's 
growth,  so  that  the  higher  and  sweeter  we  are,  just  so 
much  deeper  is  our  private  glory  in  these  wonderful 
modern  psalms  of  the  person. 

It  ought  to  be  added  that  among  many  Elizabethan 
critics  and  authors  the  most  confused  notions  prevailed 
as  to  what  constitutes  the  sonnet.  In  the  old  collec- 
tions such  as  The  Handfull  of  Pleasant  Deities,  The 
Paradise  of  Dainty  Devices,  and  the  like,  many  poems 


Origin  of  Sonnet.  245 

appear  as  "  A  Proper  Sonet "  or  "  A  Sonetto  "  which 
have  no  resemblance  to  the  sonnet  whatever,  and  are 
mere  lawless  lyric  poems.  The  name  sonnet  comes 
from  the  Italian  suonare,  to  sound,  and  appears  to  have 
been  given  from  the  circumstance  that  the  sonnets 
were  originally  written  to  be  sounded  in  recitation,  — 
that  is,  chanted  and  accompanied  by  a  musical  instru- 
ment mainly  by  the  lute. 

The  student  interested  in  pursuing  the  history  of  the 
sonnet  in  Italy  will  find  a  pleasant  account  of  it  by 
Leigh  Hunt  in  The  Book  of  the  Sonnet,  published  by 
Roberts  Brothers,  Boston  :  though  one  cannot  cite  this 
work  without  mentioning  the  wholly  pitiful  and  un- 
worthy showing  it  makes  of  the  sonnet  in  the  i6th  and 
early  i/th  centuries.  It  is  in  fact  a  disgrace  to  our 
tongue  that  we  have  no  collection  of  the  English  son- 
nets which  is  even  tolerable,  although  the  sonnet  is 
really  the  primordial  form  of  modern  English  lyric 
poetry ;  and  it  is  a  result  of  this  circumstance  that  the 
prodigious  wealth  of  our  language  in  beautiful  works  of 
this  genre  is  almost  unknown  except  to  the  professional 
worker  among  books 


246  Science  of  English   Verse. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

OF   RHYTHM   THROUGHOUT   ALL  THOSE  MOTIONS  WHICH 
WE  CALL  "NATURE." 

CRIES  the  Ass  in  A  Midsummer  Night 's  Dream:  "I 
have  a  reasonable  good  ear  in  music :  let's  have  the 
tongs  and  the  bones." 

This  selection  of  instruments  is  a  cunning  illustra- 
tion—  and  all  the  more  cunning  that  it  was  wholly 
unpremeditated  as  to  its  present  application — of  the 
wide  possession  of  the  rhythmic  faculty  by  all  classes 
of  men  from  highest  to  lowest  in  culture.  The  tongs 
and  the  bones  are  rhythmic  instruments,  exclusively: 
they  are  incapable  of  tune  (change  of  pitch)  and  of  any 
variation  in  tone-color ;  but  they  can  mark-off  rhythms 
for  the  ear,  and  so  even  an  ass  might  enjoy  them. 
There  are  many  men  who  appear  to  have  no  perception 
of  melody,  —  that  is,  of  relations  of  pitch  between  suc- 
cessive single  tones  ;  and  more  who  have  no  perception 
of  harmony,  which  is  a  more  subtle  kind  of  pitch-rela- 
tion between  simultaneous  groups  of  tones  heard  in 
succession.  But  among  the  rudest  nations,  and  long 
before  any  conceptions  of  music  proper  have  developed 
themselves,  we  find  instruments  devoted  to  the  sole 
purpose  of  marking-off  and  accentuating  rhythmic 
intervals  of  time.  These  are  the  percussive  instru- 
ments, such  as  drums,  gongs,  triangles,  jawbones, 
cymbals,  various  forms  of  castanets,  and  the  like. 
Successive  blows  upon  any  one  of  these  instruments 


Rhythmic  Motion  in  Nature.  247 

perform  exactly  the  same  office  for  the  ear  as  that 
which  is  performed  by  all  those  agencies  which  we  have 
seen  marking-off  the  rhythms  in  English  verse.  Per- 
haps the  very  earliest  form  of  marking-off  rhythms  is 
one  which  exists  in  our  own  country  to  the  present  day. 
I  mean  the  "patting"  of  the  Southern  negroes.  This 
method  of  indicating  rhythms  merely  with  the  interplay 
of  strokes  between  hands  and  thighs,  feet  and  floor,  is 
capable  of  a  considerable  degree  of  complexity ;  and  I 
remember  when  a  boy  among  the  Southern  plantations 
to  have  seen  negroes  excited  to  a  frenzy  of  delight  in 
dancing  to  no  other  music  than  that  purely  rhythmical 
form  of  it  afforded  by  the  patting  of  hands  and  feet. 
The  degree  of  what  musicians  call  "attack,"  and  the 
intensity  of  a  certain  fiery  indescribable  spirit  found  in 
Chopin's  music  (that  which  Liszt  calls  by  the  untrans- 
latable word  "zal")  which  these  strange  people  exhibit 
in  their  patting  dances  by  a  lightwood  fire  when  the 
day's  work  is  done,  would  be,  I  think,  almost  incredible 
to  one  who  has  never  seen  them.  This  is  but  another 
illustration  of  the  felicity  with  which  the  Ass  cries  "  Let 
us  have  the  tongs  and  the  bones."  These  are  purely 
rhythmical  instruments. 

But  rhythm  not  only  thus  appears  as  perhaps  the 
widest  artistic  instinct  in  man  :  it  would  seem  to  be  a 
universal  principle  throughout  nature.  Perhaps  every 
one,  in  these  days,  is  more  or  less  familiar  with  the 
complete  way  in  which  modern  physical  science  has 
reduced  all  that  enormous  and  complex  mass  of  phe- 
nomena which  we  call  physical  nature  to  a  series  of 
motions.  Older  conceptions  of  substance  as  opposed 
to  form  have  resolved  themselves  into  the  general  con- 
ception of  force  producing  motion  in  certain  modes. 


248  Science  of  English   Verse. 

It  would  seem  that  the  general  primordial  mode  of  all 
these  motions  which  we  assemble  under  the  general 
term  "  nature  "  is  rhythm.  The  essential  principle  of 
rhythm — the  student  must  have  observed  —  is  recur- 
rence at  an  interval  of  time  which  furnishes  a  unit  of 
measure  by  which  all  the  times  marked-off  by  the  recur- 
rences may  be  co-ordinated.  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer 
claims  to  have  observed  such  a  prevalence  of  this 
rhythmic  periodicity  throughout  nature  as  to  convince 
him  that  it  is  universal :  and  states  that  this  belief  is 
shared  by  Mr.  Tyndall.  It  would  indeed  seem  that 
every  thing  moves  to  measure  (nvdfid^.  The  spiral 
distribution  of  the  remote  nebulae  hints  at  rhythmic 
motion  :  the  variable  stars  brighten  and  pale  at  rhyth- 
mic intervals ;  planet,  satellite,  comet,  revolve  and 
return  in  proportionate  periods  ;  the  seasons,  the  mag- 
netic variations,  the  sun-spots,  come  and  go,  orderly ; 
the  great  tides  in  the  sea,  the  great  trade-winds  in  the 
air,  flow  by  rhythmic  rule ;  the  terrible  sawyer  in  the 
Mississippi  marks  a  vertical  rhythmus,  the  sweet  long 
grasses  in  running  brooks  a  horizontal  one ;  the  lungs 
of  the  man,  the  heart  of  the  beast,  the  cilia  of  the 
animalcule,  play  to  and  fro  with  rhythmic  systole  and 
diastole. 

And  even  those  forms  of  motion  which  seem  at  first 
view  most  lawless  appear  to  range  themselves  under 
this  orderly  principle  at  last.  Storms,  earthquakes, 
upheavals  of  continents,  recessions  of  waters,  would 
seem  to  show  seme  traces  of  recurrence  at  ordered 
intervals.  Even  disease,  —  as  I  am  informed  by  ob- 
servant physicians,  —  the  more  it  is  studied,  appears 
to  show  the  tendency  to  take  on  this  yoke,  from  the 
well-marked  periodicities  of  the  ague  to  the  vaguer  and 


Poe's  Eternal  Rhythm.  249 

more  baffling  exacerbations  and  remissions  of  obscure 
fevers  and  ills.  And  so  from  the  prodigious  recurrences 
of  the  great  worlds  in  space  which  are  measured  by 
ages,  to  the  inconceivably  rapid  recurrences  of  the 
vibrating  string  or  air-column  in  the  production  of 
sound  which  are  measured  by  thousandths  of  a  second, 
or  those  of  the  ether  in  the  production  of  light  which 
are  measured  by  hundredths-of-thousandths  of  a  second, 
everywhere  we  find  rhythm. 

One  of  the  most  striking  similes  in  all  literature 
involves  this  rhythmic  idea.  Edgar  Poe,  in  his  fan- 
tastic Eureka,  after  having  detailed  the  process  of  the 
primal  diffusion  of  matter  in  space,  the  aggregation  of 
atoms  into  worlds,  the  revolution  of  these  worlds  for  a 
time,  their  necessary  return  after  that  time  into  the 
central  sun,  and  the  then  necessary  re-diffusion  of  the 
atoms  into  space,  again  to  aggregate  into  worlds,  to  fall 
into  the  central  sun,  and  to  be  again  re-diffused  —  ever 
contracting,  ever  expanding  —  closes  his  raptus  of 
thought  with  declaring  that  this  prodigious  process  is 
nothing  more  than  the  rhythmic  beating  of  the  heart  of 
God. 

It  is  curious,  indeed,  to  find  another  assertion  in  this 
connection,  almost  as  vague  as  Poe's  dream,  meeting 
confirmation  in  the  exacter  views  of  modern  science. 
Puttenham,  in  beginning  his  chapter  "Of  Proportion 
Poeticall "  says :  "  It  is  said  by  such  as  profess  the 
Mathematicall  sciences,  that  all  things  stand  by  propor- 
tion, and  that  without  it  nothing  could  stand  to  be  good 
or  beautiful.  The  Doctors  of  our  Theologie  to  the  same 
effect,  but  in  other  termes,  say  :  that  God  made  the 
world  by  number,  measure  and  weight :  some  for  weight 
say  tune,  and  peradventure  better." 


250  Science  of  English   Verse. 

And  there  is  yet  a  more  general  view  of  the  rhythmic 
principle  which  hints  that  this  proportion  in  which  the 
worlds  move  and  by  which  "  things  stand  to  be  good  or 
beautiful "  is  due  to  antagonism.  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer 
has  formulated  the  proposition  that  where  opposing 
forces  act,  rhythm  appears,  and  has  traced  the  rhyth- 
mic motions  of  nature  to  the  antagonistic  forces  there 
found,  such  as  the  two  motions  which  carry  the  earth 
towards,  and  away  from,  the  sun  and  so  result  in  the 
periodicity  of  the  earth's  progress,  and  others. 

Perhaps  this  view  may  be  made,  without  strain,  to 
bind  together  even  facts  so  remote  from  each  other  as 
the  physical  and  the  moral.  When  we  compare  what 
one  may  call  the  literal  rhythm  which  rules  throughout 
physical  nature  with  that  metaphorical  rhythm  or  pro- 
portion which  governs  good  behavior  as  well  as  good 
art ;  when  we  find  that  opposition  in  the  physical  world 
results  in  rhythm,  and  that  so  opposition  in  the  moral 
world  —  the  fret,  the  sting,  the  thwart,  the  irreconcilable 
me  as  against  all  other  me's,  the  awful  struggle  for 
existence,  the  desperate  friction  of  individualities,  the 
no  of  death  to  all  requests  —  may  also  result  in  rhythm  ; 
when  we  perceive  that  through  all  those  immeasurable 
agitations  which  constitute  both  moral  and  physical 
nature  this  beautiful  and  orderly  principle  of  rhythm 
thus  swings  to  and  fro  like  the  shuttle  of  a  loom  and 
weaves  a  definite  and  comprehensible  pattern  into  the 
otherwise  chaotic  fabric  of  things  :  we  may  be  able  to 
see  dimly  into  that  old  Orphic  saying  of  the  seer, 
"The  father  of  metre  is  rhythm,  and  the  father  of 
rhythm  is  God." 


PART   II. 

THE   TUNES    OF   ENGLISH   VERSE. 
CHAPTER   X. 

OF    TUNE    IN    SPEECH  :     ITS    NATURE    AND    OFFICE. 

THE  preceding  chapters  of  Part  I.  have  been  devoted 
to  discussing  all  those  various  co-ordinations  of  duration 
in  verse-sounds  which  we  are  in  the  habit  of  assembling 
under  the  general  name  of  rhythm.  It  is  earnestly 
asked  that  the  foregoing  discussion  should  not  be  con- 
sidered exhaustive.  It  is  in  fact  but  an  outline,  confined 
by  the  necessary  limitations  of  an  elementary  work  like 
the  present,  and  intended  only  to  furnish  the  student 
with  such  an  outfit  of  facts  and  principles  as  will  serve 
for  pursuing  farther  researches.  It  can  claim  no  more 
completeness  than  is  implied  in  the  endeavor  to  show 
that  the  study  of  rhythm  is  at  once  more  extensive  and 
more  fruitful  than  is  apt  to  be  thought  by  those  whose 
attention  has  not  been  specially  called  to  this  subject. 

We  are  now  to  investigate  a  class  of  phenomena  which 
differ  widely  from  those  of  rhythm  and  which  appeal  to 
some  of  the  subtlest  and  least  understood  operations  of 
the  human  soul.  It  was  stated  in  the  outset  that  the 
employment  of  the  physical  means  of  duration,  pitch, 

intensity  and   tone-color  produced    a   great  variety  of 

251 


252  Science  of  English    Verse. 

poetic  effects  which  fall  under  one  or  other  of  three 
great  classes,  namely, 

I.     The  rhythms  \ 

II.     The  tunes       >•  of  English  verse. 
III.     The  colors     ) 

Part  II.  is  to  treat  the  second  of  these  classes  —  the 
tunes  of  English  verse.  In  doing  so  it  will  be  necessary 
to  call  attention  first  to  the  tunes  of  ordinary  talk,  or 
speech-melodies. 

If  one  had  not  otherwise  learned  to  appreciate  the 
completeness  with  which  habit  can  overlay  and  cover 
up  phenomena  that  assail  our  senses  a  thousand  times 
an  hour,  one  would  be  astonished  to  find  that  many 
persons  are  sceptical  upon  being  told  that  ordinary  talk 
is  a  series  of  tunes  and  that  the  greater  part  of  expres- 
sion is  carried  on  by  means  of  melodies  rather  than 
words.  Most  persons  associate  the  idea  of  melody 
solely  with  musical  performances,  and  the  term  usually 
suggests  either  a  musical  instrument  or  the  singing-tone 
of  the  voice. 

In  point  of  fact,  (i)  tunes  —  melodies,  distinctly 
formulated  patterns  of  tones  varying  in  pitch  —  exist 
not  only  in  poetic  readings,  but  in  all  the  most  common- 
place communications  between  man  and  man  by  means 
of  words. 

(2)  Further :  every  affirmation,  every  question,  has  its 
own  peculiar  tune ;  every  emotion,  every  shade  of  emo- 
tion, has  its  tune  ;  and  such  tunes  are  not  mere  accidents 
but  are  absolutely  essential  elements  in  fixing  the  precise 
signification  of  words  and  phrases. 

(3)  Further  still :  these  tunes  not  only  affect  the  sig- 
nification of   different  words,  but  they  greatly  modify 


Rhythm,  Melody,  and  Harmony.         253 

the  meaning  of  the  same  words,  so  that  a  phrase  uttered 
according  to  one  tune  means  one  thing,  according  to 
another  tune  another  thing. 

These  propositions  are  now  to  be  illustrated. 

Before  doing  so,  it  will  save  trouble  to  clear  up  a 
certain  very  vague  sense  in  which  the  terms  "melody" 
and  "harmony"  are  often  used  as  to  verse, — a  sense 
wholly  different  from  that  intended  in  the  present  dis- 
cussion. We  hear  often  of  "  melodious "  verse,  or 
"harmonious"  verse:  in  such  expressions  the  meaning 
always  has  reference  simply  to  the  rhythmic  structure, 
—  "  melodious  "  or  "  harmonious  "  verse  in  this  sense 
being  simply  verse  that  flows  along  smoothly  and  pleas- 
antly in  its  rhythmic  movement. 

But  in  any  precise  use  of  terms  "  rhythm "  and 
"melody"  and  "harmony  "  have  the  widest  differences 
in  their  signification.  It  is  easy  to  bring  these  dif- 
ferences clearly  before  the  mind  by  the  system  of  nota- 
tion which  has  already  been  employed  in  part. 

Observe  that  rhythm,  or  trie  differences  in  duration 
of  notes,  may  be  noted  on  a  single  straight  line,  or  no 
line  at  all :  thus  in 

§  t  i  t  t  t  t  t  t  t  r  t 


Oh     that     my 


heart  were      a 


rose     of      the 


gar   -  den 


there  is  no  occasion  to  place  the  notes  in  any  particular 
vertical  relation  to  each  other,  the  rhythmical  relations 
being  all  denoted  by  those  shapes  of  the  characters 
which  indicate  their  relative  duration. 

But  if  we  should  wish  to  place  the  above  notes  in 
relations  of  melody :  if  we  should  wish  to  add  time  to 
their  rhythm,  —  that  is  to  vary  their  pitch  as  well  as 


254  Science  of  English   Verse. 

their  duration, — we  must  now  use  more  than  one  line 
in  the  musical  system  of  notation,  thus  : 


Oh      that    my    heart  were    the    rose    of       the    gar    -    den 

by  comparing  which,  bar  for  bar,  with  the  other,  it  is 
perceived  that  while  the  rhythm  has  been  exactly  pre- 
served—  there  being  three  eighth-notes  in  each  bar  — 
the  pitch  of  each  tone  has  been  varied,  so  that  what 
was  before  a  mere  pattern  of  durations,  or  rhythm,  is 
now  that  and  something  more,  to  wit,  a  pattern  of  pitch, 
—  that  is,  a  tune  or  melody. 

But  —  relations  of  rhythm  and  tune  being  thus  dis- 
criminated—  relations  of  harmony  must  on  the  other 
hand  be  distinguished  from  those  of  melody  with  equal 
care.  Melody  consists  of  tones,  differing  in  pitch, 
struck  successively :  while  harmony  consists  of  tones 
differing  in  pitch  struck  simultaneously,  or  chords  :  as 

This    distinction   will  be 

found  assuming  a  position  of  great  interest  in  certain 
connections  which  will  presently  engage  attention. 

Such  being  tunes  or  melodies  :  in  order  to  under- 
stand the  wonderful  parts  they  play  in  ordinary  speech, 
let  us  analyze  the  mental  and  physical  processes  upon 
which  a  certain  little  German  comedy  called  "  Come 
Here ! "  is  based.  This  comedy  admirably  illustrates 
the  extent  to  which  the  meaning  of  the  same  words  can 
be  varied  by  uttering  them  in  different  tunes,  and  the 
curious  manner  in  which  these  tunes  are  recognized  by 
all  persons  as  conveying  certain  definite  significations. 


Comedy  of  "  Come  Here"  255 

The  plot  of  the  comedy  mentioned  is  as  simple  as  possi-. 
ble.  An  old  theatrical  manager  is  testing  the  capacity 
of  a  young  actress  who  seeks  an  engagement.  The 
whole  play  is  based  upon  the  two  words  "  Come  here  : " 
the  manager,  in  order  to  try  the  genius  of  the  actress, 
explains  to  her  a  certain  situation  hinging  upon  the 
words  "  Come  here,"  and  tells  her  to  express  the  whole 
situation  by  the  manner  in  which  she  utters  these  two 
words.  Then  a  wholly  different  situation  is  suggested, 
which  she  must  express  by  uttering  the  same  words  to 
a  different  tune  :  then  another,  and  so  on,  the  entire 
action  of  the  piece  being  thus  carried  out  by  ringing 
the  changes  upon  these  two  words  "  Come  here."  The 
number  of  these  changes  far  exceeds  the  belief  of  any 
one  whose  attention  has  never  been  specially  drawn  to 
the  subject. 

Now  (i)  the  possibility  of  such  a  comedy  is  evidently 
based  upon  the  facts  already  asserted  :  namely,  that  in 
some  way  men  have  associated  a  certain  tune  of  the 
speaking-voice  with  each  emotion,  and  that  when  the 
tune  is  heard,  the  emotion  is  recalled.  But,  secondly, 
the  possibility  of  such  a  comedy  entirely  dissipates  the 
vague  terms  "intonation"  and  "inflection"  which  by 
their  very  incompleteness  have  so  long  concealed  from 
view  the  real  nature  and  office  of  the  tunes  of  speech. 
For  these  terms  are  based  upon  the  underlying  idea 
that  the  variations  of  pitch  which  accompany  uttered 
words  are  merely  casual  and  lawless,  and  have  no  fixed 
connection  with  the  words  which  they  accompany.  The 
play  just  cited  shows,  by  the  crucial  test  of  actual  experi- 
ment, that  precisely  the  opposite  of  these  vague  ideas  is 
true,  namely,  that  the  variations  of  pitch  which  accom- 
pany all  spoken  words  are,  in  the  strictest  sense  of  the 


256  Science  of  English   Verse. 

term,  tunes  :  that  they  are  definite  successions  of  tones, 
so  definite  as  to  be  remembered  and  reproduced  by  the 
actress  (in  the  case  given)  and  as  to  be  remembered  and 
instantly  recognized  by  the  audience :  for  how  else 
would  the  propriety  of  each  different  tune  to  each  dif- 
ferent situation  be  discovered  by  the  hearers,  the  words 
always  remaining  the  same  ?  Nothing  can  be  more 
irresistible  than  the  logical  inference  from  this  comedy 
that  somehow  —  exactly  how,  would  be  too  subtle  an 
inquiry  for  this  place  —  it  has  happened  that  certain 
fixed  successions  of  tones  varying  in  pitch — that  is, 
certain  fixed  tunes  —  have  been  from  of  old  associated 
with  the  emotions  expressed  in  this  play,  and  that  when 
the  actress  uttered  the  proper  tune,  the  audience  invari- 
ably recalled  the  emotion  with  which  it  is  associated. 

We  may  now  illustrate  the  same  fact  on  a  wider 
scale,  from  another  direction.  In  order  to  show  how 
unconsciously  and  universally  we  associate  tune  with 
any  utterance  in  the  speaking-voice,  let  us  consider  the 
effect  when  tune  is  absent  from  such  utterance.  This 
effect  is  always,  in  tendency  at  least,  to  produce  the 
impression  of  either  the  idiotic  or  the  supernatural. 

(i)  The  idiotic  effect  may  easily  be  illustrated  by  a 
trivial  example,  —  and  the  more  trivial  the  better,  as 
showing  the  association  of  fixed  tunes  with  all  the  most 
commonplace  and  familiar  talk  of  men.  Recall,  for 
instance,  and  imitate  aloud,  the  absolute  monotone 
with  which  the  very  young  schoolboy  pronounces  the 
following  words,  when  he  is  learning  to  read.  Fancy 
him  standing  at  the  teacher's  knee,  his  brows  puckered 
with  concentration,  his  attention  so  completely  fixed 
upon  the  unfamiliar  forms  of  the  words  which  he  is 
painfully  spelling  out  letter  by  letter  between  each 


Effect  of  Monotone  in  Speech.  257 

utterance  that  he  really  utters  them  without  the  least 
idea  attaching  to  any  of  them,  and,  since  without  idea, 
therefore  without  tune.  This  tuneless  speech  makes 
an  impression  which  every  one  recognizes  as  idiotic. 
"  The  .  .  .  cat  .  .  .  ran  ...  at  ....  the  ....  rat 

.  .  .  and ate  .  .  the  .  .  .  rat.  .  .  .  The  ...  rat 

.  .  .  ran  .  .  from  ....  the  .  .  cat  &c."  These  words 
have,  as  I  say,  no  meaning  for  him,  because  he  is  think- 
ing of  the  words  themselves,  not  of  the  ideas  which  they 
symbolize  and  therefore  he  utters  them  without  their 
tune ;  but  when  he  gets  back  to  his  desk,  and  has  occa- 
sion to  speak  ideas,  he  will  be  sure  to  speak  them  in  a 
certain  tune ;  as,  for  example,  the  tune  of  indignant 
protest  and  demand,  when  he  finds  that  in  his  absence 
his  desk-mate  has  wilfully  and  feloniously  appropriated 
his  goods  :  "You,  Johnny  Smith,  give  me  my  apple!" 
a  tune  which  every  one  can  imitate. 

(2)  Such  being  the  idiotic  impression  conveyed  by 
words  without  tune  in  the  high  squeak  of  the  boy's 
voice :  words  without  tune  in  more  sonorous  and  dig- 
nified tones  of  a  man's  voice  may  be  made  to  convey 
the  impression  of  the  unnatural,  even  the  supernatural. 
This  the  reader  may  illustrate  by  uttering  in  an  abso- 
lute monotone  the  speech  of  the  ghost  in  Hamlet,  and 
contrasting  this  monotone  with  the  ever-varying  tune 
in  which  Hamlet  must  utter  the  interjections  of  tender- 
ness and  of  horror  which  occasionally  interrupt  the 
ghost's  speech.  The  result  will  very  clearly  prove  the 
point  now  in  hand :  the  monotone  of  the  ghost,  that  is, 
the  absence  of  tune  from  his  utterance,  freezes  us  with 
a  sense  of  the  unnatural,  while  the  fervent  tunes  of 
Hamlet's  brief  cries  remind  us  unconsciously  of  our 
human  kinship  with  him. 


258  Science  of  English   Verse. 

In  order  to  place  the  mind  in  a  proper  attitude 
towards  the  true  nature  of  the  tunes  of  speech,  let  the 
reader  endeavor  for  several  days  to  concentrate  atten- 
tion upon  the  variations  of  pitch  which  accompany 
ordinary  conversation.  At  first,  the  keenest  ear  finds 
it  difficult  to  do  consciously  that  which  we  all  do  uncon- 
sciously ;  but  presently  this  difficulty  will  vanish,  and 
the  explorer  will  straightway  discover  a  new  world  of 
tune.  The  unconscious  melodies  of  the  speaking-voice 
are  indeed  subtle  and  beautiful  beyond  description,  and 
the  habit  of  consciously  co-ordinating  them  is  a  pro- 
digious gain  to  the  ear's  field  of  pleasure. 

Once  upon  the  track,  the  reader  will  doubtless  begin 
presently  to  recall  a  thousand  cunning  effects  in  speech 
based  wholly  upon  tune.  To  give  a  few  examples  of 
these,  before  proceeding  to  other  considerations  :  con- 
sider the  happy  way  in  which  the  tunes  of  speech  are 
used  by  the  clown  in  All's  Well  That  Ends  Well  to 
give  all  manner  of  different  meanings  to  the  words  "  O 
Lord,  sir."  The  clown  contends  that  this  is  an  answer 
of  the  greatest  service  at  court,  for  that  it  will  fit  every 
occasion. 

CLOWN.  .  .  .  But,  for  me,  I  have  an  answer  will  serve  all 
men. 

COUNTESS.  Marry,  that's  a  bountiful  answer,  that  fits  all 
questions. 

CLOWN.  From  below  your  duke  to  beneath  your  constable,  it 
will  fit  any  question. 

COUNTESS.  It  must  be  an  answer  of  most  monstrous  size, 
that  must  fit  all  demands. 

CLOWN.  But  a  trifle  neither,  in  good  faith,  if  the  learned  should 
speak  truth  of  it.  Here  it  is,  and  all  that  belongs  to  it :  ...  ask 
me,  if  I  am  a  courtier  .  .  . 


Clown's  Tunes  in  All's   Well.  259 

COUNTESS.     ...  I  pray  you,  sir,  are  you  a  courtier? 
CLOWN.     O  Lord,  sir  ! —  there's  a  simple  putting  off.  —  More, 
more,  a  hundred  of  them. 

COUNTESS.     Sir,  I  am  a  poor  friend  of  yours,  that  loves  you. 
CLOWN.     O  Lord,  sir  ! — Thick,  thick,  spare  not  me. 
COUNTESS.     /  think,  sir,  you  can  eat  none  of  this  homely  meat. 
CLOWN.     O  Lord,  sir!    Nay,  put  me  to  't,  I  warrant  you. 
COUNTESS.     You  were  lately  whipped,  sir,  as  I  think. 
CLOWN.     O  Lord,  sir!—  Spare  not  me. 

COUNTESS.     I  play  the  noble  housewife  with  the  time, 

To  entertain  it  so  merrily  with  a  fool. 
CLOWN.     O  Lord,  sir !  —  Why,  there  't  serves  well  again. 

Here  each  of  the  clown's  ejaculations  is  uttered  in  a 
different  tune,  namely : 

The  ist  in  a  tune  which  means  Of  course,  I  am; 
"    2nd    "       "         "  "       Oh,  — another  suitor  ; 

"    3rd     "       "         "  "       ril  condescend  to  try  ; 

"    4th     "       "        "          "       And  soundly,  too; 

and  so  on. 

Or,  again,  every  one  can  perhaps  recall  when  one's 
letter  has  been  misread  as  to  the  tune  of  some  phrase, 
with  the  result  of  heart-burning  and  bitterness ;  or  how 
often  a  quarrel  between  neighbors,  in  being  traced  to 
its  source,  has  been  found  to  flow  from  the  gossip's 
report  of  what  Mrs.  Smith  said  of  Mrs.  Brown  in  a  dif- 
ferent tune  from  that  actually  used  in  the  utterance, 
for,  even  though  the  words  were  reported  exactly  as  ut- 
tered, unless  the  tune  were  also  reported  exactly  as  given, 
the  whole  meaning  would  be  changed,  and  a  sympathetic 
exclamation  might  easily  be  converted  into  a  derisive 
sneer. 

The  extravaganza  printed  in  children's  books  is  here 
directly  in  point,  for  when  analyzed,  its  basis  is  clearly 


260  Science  of  English   Verse. 

the  unconscious  recognition  of  the  wonderful   manner 
in  which  tunes  change  the  meaning  of  words. 

A  certain  king  sent  to  another  king,  saying  :  "  Send 
me  a  blue  pig  with  a  green  tail,  or "...  The  other 
king  replied,  "I  have  none;  if  I  had,  I  ..."  Here- 
upon ensued  a  great  war  ;  and  after  many  thousand  per- 
sons were  killed,  the  two  kings,  coming  together  by 
accident,  discovered  that  the  first  king's  message  was 
only  this  :  "  Send  me  a  blue  pig  with  a  green  tail,  or 
...  a  green  pig  with  a  blue  tail  : "  and  that  the  sec- 
ond king's  reply  was :  "  I  have  none :  if  I  had,  ...  I 
would  send  it." 

Upon  analysis,  we  find  the  plot  of  this  story  to  be 
based  upon  the  circumstance,  taken  for  granted,  that 
even  the  child  who  reads  it  will  understand  the  wrong 
tunes  in  which  these  messages  were  reported,  each 
being  in  the  tune  of  a  threat  instead  of  the  tune  of  a 
request. 

Or  again  what  lawyer  in  tracing  the  astonishing  con- 
tradictions which  equally  credible  witnesses  often  give 
to  each  other's  testimony  has  not  found  them  due  to 
the  failure  of  one  or  other  witness,  —  or  both,  —  to  give 
correctly  tunes  as  well  as  words. 

But  when,  leaving  these  broader  and  more  striking 
tunes  of  everyday  speech,  we  come  to  consider  the 
extremely  delicate  shades  of  meaning  which  can  be 
imparted  to  every  phrase  and  sentence  by  slight  va- 
riations in  its  customary  tune,  we  are  met  with  a 
truly  wonderful  series  of  phenomena.  If  the  reader 
will  examine  closely  the  conversation  which  goes  on 
between  daily  intimates  such  as  friends,  husband  and 
wife,  and  the  like,  who  have  thoroughly  learned  each 
other's  habitual  tunes  of  speech,  it  will  be  found  that 


New  Art  of  Speech -Tunes.  261 

the  words  used  in  their  communications  to  each  other, 
if  taken  without  these  tunes,  would  bear  the  strangest 
relations  to  the  matters  in  hand  in  the  great  majority  of 
instances.  All  the  most  subtle  complexities  of  passion, 
of  petulance,  of  satiric  under-meaning  of  affection,  of 
humor,  are  expressed  in  this  way.  Relying  upon  the 
examples  already  given  to  recall  to  every  one's  mind 
innumerable  instances  of  this  sort,  perhaps  it  will  not 
be  necessary  to  delay  longer  upon  these  preliminary 
illustrations,  and  the  reader  may  be  now  prepared  to 
see  for  himself  that  in  point  of  fact  words  form  the 
smaller  element  in  language.  In  truth  our  modern  life 
is  so  complex  that  we  could  never  get  along  with  mere 
words.  Existence  is  so  many-thoughted,  conscience  is 
so  cunning,  passion  is  so  refined,  men's  relations  to 
nature  are  so  subtle,  wit  is  so  knowing,  humor  is  so 
deep,  —  in  this  nineteenth  century  that  the  few  thou- 
sand words  of  our  English  vocabulary,  rich  as  that  is, 
would  leave  us  dumb  half  the  time  if  we  could  not  say 
them  in  manifold  and  expressive  tunes  which  multiply 
their  meanings. 

But,  having  thus  called  attention  to  the  fact  of  these 
tunes,  it  is  now  time  to  discuss  their  artistic  application 
in  verse  and  to  analyze  their  nature. 

Within  quite  recent  times  the  world  has  seen  what 
we  may  fairly  call  a  new  art  rising  in  our  midst,  based 
upon  the  tunes  of  speech.  Consider  for  a  moment  what 
a  remarkable  exhibition  it  is  when  a  single  person  —  a 
woman,  for  instance,  like  Charlotte  Cushman  —  presents 
herself  on  the  stage  of  a  theatre  or  concert-room,  not  to 
sing,  not  to  play,  but  to  entertain  the  audience  with 
what  we  call  "readings,"  or  recitations.  Now  these 
"  readings  "  are  really  nothing  more  than  performances 


262  Science  -of  English   Verse. 

of  speech-tunes.  We  can  all  take  Macbeth  in  the 
printed  copy  and  read  the  words  for  ourselves  ;  but  we 
gather  in  crowds  to  hear  those  particular  tunes  of 
speech  in  which  Miss  Cushman  will  embody  these 
words.  Here,  simply  by  the  melodies  of  speech  which 
in  their  crude  forms  I  have  tried  to  recall  by  several 
instances,  she  reproduces  before  a  popular  audience  a 
whole  play  of  Shakspere  with  all  its  complex  elements 
of  situation  and  of  character.  In  truth  there  are  many 
persons  who  derive  more  pleasure  from  hearing  a  play 
of  Shakspere's  thus  reproduced  through  the  medium  of 
speech-tunes  than  in  seeing  it  rendered  with  all  the 
properties  of  the  stage.  For  the  realistic  limitations  of 
even  the  best  stage-setting  are  very  great,  and  grow 
daily  more  and  more  intolerable  to  the  modern  man  :  it 
is  getting  to  be  very  hard  to  forgive  the  four  roustabouts 
in  jackboots  who  personate  the  army,  and  the  rosin  and 
dried  pease  which  make  the  lightning  and  the  rain. 
Moreover  in  the  "reading"  the  whole  play  is  rendered 
with  a  symmetrical  evenness  not  to  be  obtained  in  a 
time  when  it  is  the  custom  of  managers  to  present  one 
good  actor,  or  "star,"  "  supported  "  by  merely  wooden 
people.  When  Charlotte  Cushman  reads  Macbeth,  for 
instance,  it  is  really  a  great  cast:  for  —  as  the  bills 
would  put  it  —  we  have 

Macbeth CHARLOTTE  CUSHMAN 

Lady  Macbeth CHARLOTTE  CUSHMAN 

Duncan CHARLOTTE  CUSHMAN 

The  Porter CHARLOTTE  CUSHMAN 

and  so  on,  through  the  dramatis  persona. 

It  may  now  be  of  profit  to  pass  lightly  along  a  line  of 
inquiry  which  seems  to  reveal  that  the  speech-tune  has 
but  recently  segregated  itself  as  an  art  from  the  main 


Historic  Separation  of  Poetry  and  Music.  263 

stem  of  music  proper ;  that  it  is  an  art  in  its  infancy, 
which  we  may  observe  actually  rising  among  us  at  the 
present  day ;  and  that  it  is  destined  to  noble  and  beau- 
tiful extensions  in  the  future.  If  the  reader  will  follow 
for  a  few  moments  the  remarkable  course  of  develop- 
ment which  music  has  pursued  through  its  three  great 
epochs  of  the  antique  music,  mediaeval  music,  and 
modern  music,  it  will  be  seen  that  we  can  trace  with 
great  clearness,  all  along,  the  ever-increasing  tendency 
of  poetry  to  split  away  from  music  and  to  become  a 
wholly  separate  art  with  wholly  separate  methods. 

A  fact  which  must  have  come  within  the  experience 
of  the  most  cursory  observers  meets  us  at  the  outset  of 
this  inquiry,  and  furnishes  a  clew  which  guides  us  along 
its  whole  extent.  This  is  the  comparatively  little  impor- 
tance which  the  words  of  a  modern  song  bear  to  the 
tune  of  it.  We  shall  find,  in  point  of  fact,  that  the 
whole  line  of  musical  tendency  has  been  to  discard 
words  as  words  —  or  vehicles  of  ideas  —  and  to  use 
them  purely  as  vehicles  of  tone,  without  reference  to 
their  meaning:  while  on  the  other  hand  poetry,  pur- 
suing similarly  its  own  course,  has  tended  to  relieve 
itself  from  all  dependence  on,  or  association  with, 
music,  and  to  rely  upon  the  more  subtle  and  practicable 
tunes  of  the  speaking-voice. 

Thus  when  we  find  —  as  all  do  who  attend  the  aver- 
age modern  concert  —  that  in  the  vocal  part  of  the 
performance  the  words  are  of  little  importance ;  that 
they  are  indeed  very  often  in  some  foreign  language  not 
understood  by  the  great  majority  of  the  audience ;  and 
that,  when  not  so,  the  music  is  commonly  of  such  a  com- 
plex nature  as  to  require  a  pronunciation  which  renders 
them  quite  unintelligible  ;  we  can  understand  the  signifi- 


264  Science  of  English   Verse. 

cance  of  the  fact.  It  is  not  —  as  many  are  apt  to  think 
—  a  mere  temporary  affectation  or  carelessness  on  the 
part  either  of  composer  or  singer.  It  is  really  one 
phase  of  that  differentiating  process  we  are  now  to 
trace,  which  has  resulted  in  the  complete  independence 
of  music  on  the  one  hand  and  of  poetry  on  the  other, 
the  former  having  found  its  fullest  expression  in  the 
purely  instrumental  symphony,  while  the  latter  finds  its 
fullest  expression  in  the  purely  vocal  tunes  of  the  speak- 
ing-voice. 

A  brief  historic  outline  of  the  relations  of  music  to 
poetry  will  show  us  not  only  how  the  speech-tune  art  is 
the  result  of  natural  development,  but  how  its  rise  was 
to  be  expected  at  the  present  time,  from  the  conditions 
at  which  music  and  poetry  have  now  arrived. 

There  are  three  strongly-marked  epochs  in  the  histo- 
ry of  music  which  logically  arrange  themselves  into  the 

Antique,     ~J 
Mediaeval, 

and        r  Periods' 
Modern, 

These  periods  are  not  so  called  merely  to  identify  them 
with  the  corresponding  periods  in  man's  political  and 
social  history,  but  on  account  of  striking  and  inher- 
ent differences  in  the  stages  of  music  itself.  It  is  true 
that  these  are  all  connected,  in  the  closest  manner : 
whenever  a  change  occurs  in  the  condition  of  men, 
political,  social  or  other,  a  change  will  also  occur  in  the 
art  predominant  during  that  time :  for,  little  as  it  may 
seem  to  busy  contemporaries,  a  vital  union  exists  be- 
tween the  art  of  any  time  and  the  common  life  of  any 
time,  and  one  may  say  with  truth  that  symphonies  and 


Egyptian  Song,  Dance,  and  Poem,  in  One.  265 

paintings,  like  marriages,  vary  with  the  price  of  corn. 
In  our  rasping  life  of  trade  we  are  apt  to  imagine  that 
art  is  of  little  account  after  all,  and  that  the  poor  artist 
who  is  sitting  off  in  his  narrow  ill-furnished  room  writ- 
ing his  poem  or  jotting  down  his  symphony  is  a  pitiful 
cipher  quite  out  of  the  actual  march  of  important  affairs. 
It  always  seems  so,  while  we  listen  to  the  noise  of 
trade  on  the  pavements.  But  men  do  not  really  think 
so,  and  they  have  shown  in  a  thousand  ways  that  they 
do  not.  One  can  hardly  recall  a  more  vivid  illustration 
than  that  Aldhelm  of  whom  mention  was  made  early  in 
this  book.  This  Aldhelm  standing  on  the  bridge,  —  as 
the  story  goes,  —  singing  ballads  and  sweet  gospels  to 
the  traders  as  they  passed  by,  was  likely  a  pitiful  enough 
figure  to  the  practical  men.  But  when  the  years  roll 
by,  we  see  well  enough  what  the  ages — what  the  people 
—  really  hold  as  valuable:  for  now  we  do  not  know 
even  the  name  of  the  richest  merchant  who  passed  the 
bridge,  but  generation  after  generation  has  preserved 
not  only  the  name  of  Aldhelm  but  many  particulars  of 
his  life,  and  all  the  wealth  of  those  who  passed  him  on 
the  bridge  would  now  be  given  for  one  of  his  songs. 

Without  however  being  able  now  to  trace  how  the 
common  life  of  a  time  connects  itself  with  and  colors 
the  art  of  the  time  —  and  most  especially  the  music  of 
the  time  —  the  main  features  which  characterize  the 
music  of  these  three  periods  may  be  now  developed. 
As  the  old  Egyptian  devotee  sings,  dances  and  per- 
haps plays  some  musical  instrument  before  his  God, 
we  find  the  three  arts  of  music,  poetry,  and  dancing 
united  in  the  closest  bonds.  The  words  or  poetry  of 
the  song,  the  music  of  the  song,  and  the  dance,  are  of 
equal  importance  in  the  artistic  act  as  a  whole.  As  we 


266  Science  of  English   Verse. 

come  down  in  time,  first  the  dance  splits  off  from  the 
union  and  becomes  a  separate  art.  Among  the  Jews 
the  triple  union  is  preserved  for  some  time :  David 
danced  before  the  ark,  and  there  are  several  records  of 
similar  religious  art  among  his  people.  Even  in  the 
Greek  period  dancing  is  esteemed  as  a  fine  art  on  equal 
terms  with  the  others.  But  here  an  interesting  change 
begins  to  show  itself.  While  the  art  of  dancing  has 
confirmed  its  individual  existence,  a  process  of  separa- 
tion begins  to  show  itself  between  music  and  poetry  — 
the  two  other  members  of  the  once  triple  union.  The 
first  phase  of  this  differentiation  exhibits  itself  in  the 
form  of  the  musical  declamation  accompanied  by  the 
lyre  which  was  so  popular  among  the  Greeks.  This 
musical  declamation  may  be  regarded  as  the  beginning 
of  an  effort  on  the  part  of  poetry  to  set  up  a  separate 
form  of  expression  for  itself  apart  from  the  musical 
form  :  the  music  then,  as  now,  seems  apt  to  swallow  up 
and  drown  the  words  of  a  song ;  and  from  this  point  on, 
down  to  the  present  time,  we  will  find  more  and  more 
clearly  declaring  itself  an  effort  on  the  part  of  words, 
or  poetry,  to  gain  some  form  of  utterance  which  will  be 
indeed  in  a  sense  musical  but  which  will  be  so  in  a  way 
to  bring  out,  rather  than  obscure,  the  meanings  of  the 
words. 

A  little  clew  seems  to  appear,  at  this  point,  connect- 
ing the  Greek  musical  declamation  with  the  modern 
speech-tune.  In  our  usual  talk  nowadays,  when  we  ask 
a  question  the  voice  rises  at  the  end  of  the  interroga- 
tory through  an  interval  of  about  a  fourth  ;  that  is,  for 


instance,  from  gk—      -  to  (By— J — .     On  the  contrary 


Cadence  of  the  Fourth,  in  Speech.        267 

when  we  make  an  ordinary  affirmation,  the  voice  falls 
at  the  end  of  it  through  about  the  same  interval  of  a 
fourth.  This  rise  and  fall  of  the  fourth  may  be  re- 
garded as  the  crudest  and  most  general  form  of  the  end 
of  a  speech-tune.  We  all  know  and  instantly  recognize 
these  inflections  as  meaning  either  interrogation  or 
affirmation.  If  one  meets  a  paralyzed  man  who  cannot 
articulate,  for  instance,  and  hears  him  mumble  some- 
thing like  this : 


^   Z3        3=    =^E 


humph  humph  humph  humph  humph? 

one  knows  that  he  is  asking  some  sort  of  a  question  : 
while  if  the  tune  of  his  voice  should  have  a  cadence  (as 
the  end  of  a  strain  is  called  in  music)  consisting  of  a 
fall  of  the  voice  through  this  same  interval  one  would 
know  that  he  was  making  an  assertion. 

This  tendency  of  the  voice  to  fall  through  the  interval 
of  the  fourth  seems  to  show  itself  in  the  Greek  music. 
In  that  memorable  collection  of  instructive  questions 
which  Aristotle  calls  his  Problems,  some  words  occur 
which  make  it  probable  that  the  Greek  tune  usually 
ended  with  a  stroke  on  that  string  of  the  lyre  called 
peat],  followed  by  a  stroke  on  the  string  called  vnr«Tiy: 
and  according  to  the  Doric  mode  of  tuning  the  lyre  this 
would  be  a  fall  of  a  fourth,  the  string  /«<r<7  corresponding 

with  (fK     *  —  and  weary  with  (ffr~     — .     This  striking 


similarity  between  the  cadence,  or  end,  of  a  musical 
tune,  and  the  commonest  cadence  or  end  of  a  speech- 
tune  we  will  find  again  recurring  as  we  come  on  down 
the  history  of  music.1 

1  See  Ilelmholtz,  as  hitherto  cited,  here  and  there. 


268  Science  of  English   Verse. 

But  the  main  point  now  is  that  among  the  Greeks  a 
struggle  for  independence  begins  on  the  part  of  words 
as  against  pure  musical  tones,  and  shows  itself  in  the 
so-called  musical  declamation,  which  was  not  exactly 
musical  tune  nor  exactly  speech-tune. 

Leaving  the  antique  period  :  if  we  now  consider  the 
mediaeval  period,  we  find  the  progress  of  music  charac- 
terized by  its  first  faint  approach  towards  harmony. 
The  Greeks  had  no  harmony  at  all.  Their  music  was 
all  melody,  that  is,  a  succession  of  single  tones :  and 
what  they  called  an  accompaniment  seems  to  have  been 
merely  striking  the  same  tones  on  the  lyre  (or  other 
musical  instrument)  which  were  uttered  by  the  voice, 
perhaps  in  a  different  octave.  The  intervals  of  the 
fourth  and  the  fifth  were  certainly  known  by  Pythago- 
ras, but  their  modern  harmonic  relations  would  seem  to 
have  been  wholly  unsuspected.  This  absence  of  har- 
mony continues  in  the  mediaeval  period,  but  an  approach 
to  it  becomes  visible  in  what  is  called  the  polyphonic 
music  which  distinguishes  this  period.  In  polyphonic 
music  several  different  melodies  are  so  arranged  that 
they  may  be  sung  or  played  at  the  same  time,  without 
discord.  There  is  no  attempt  yet  at  chords,  as  we 
strike  them,  in  accompanying  a  paramount  melody : 
but  the  separate  melodies  move  independently,  though 
not  discordantly.  An  interesting  specimen  of  this  early 
polyphonic  music  in  the  mediaeval  period  is  presented  to 
us  in  the  Cuckoo  Song  which  has  been  given  in  another 
connection.  It  was  mentioned  that  this  is  notable  as 
the  first  English  song  found  accompanied  by  the  musi- 
cal notes  to  which  it  was  sung.  These  musical  notes 
give  us  one  of  the  tunes  which  were  called  by  the  tech- 
nical name  of  Discant  in  the  polyphonic  system. 


Sonnet,  Ballad,  Chant:  Transition -Forms.   269 

Here  the  words  are  still  subordinated  to  the  music : 
they  have  not  yet  achieved  their  independence ;  but 
we  find  the  musical  declamation  or  recitative  acquiring 
great  prominence  during  this  time,  and  presenting  us 
with  a  farther  stage  of  the  struggle.  The  little  clew  of 
the  fourth,  too,  recurs  in  an  interesting  manner  in  the 
intoned  church  service  which  takes  form  during  this 
period.  In  chanting  the  Catholic  service  there  are 
certain  short  musical  phrases  which  denote  marks  of 
punctuation ;  when  the  priest  makes  this  interval 
(but  they  differ  in  different  services),  for  example, 


fa    t*     flg      ,  the  congregation  knows  that  a  comma  has 

=r  -3-1-3= 

occurred  in  the  text,  when  he  makes  this  (a).    •" 

they  understand   a   semicolon  :   when    he  makes   this, 

&    •*          =,  it  is  the  sign  of  a  full  stop,  and  here  may 

t 

be  recognized  the  familiar  cadence  of  the  fourth. 

In  this  time  too  we  find  words  manifesting  their 
struggle  for  independence  in  various  specialized  forms 
of  poems  intended  to  be  sung  or  recited  with  accompa- 
niment of  music  or  of  dancing  or  of  both.  The  "son- 
net "  takes  its  name  from  the  sounding  of  the  lute 
which  it  was  intended  to  take  on  as  an  accompaniment : 
the  "  ballad  "  is  from  ballare,  to  dance,  and  is  originally 
a  song  to  be  danced  to  ;  the  "  chant "  begins  to  assume 
a  meaning  different  from  cantus,  and  to  lean  towards  a 
prolonged  sort  of  speech-tune. 

Coming  now  to  the  distinctively  modern  period  of 
music:  in  the  i6th  century  appears  both  in  Italy  and 
England  a  great  passion  for  the  accompanied  declama- 


2  70  Science  of  English   Verse. 

tion  (recitative  accompagnatd).  In  Italy  the  operatic 
recitative  flourishes ;  in  England  Nicholas  Lanier  re- 
cites a  whole  masque  composed  by  Ben  Jonson,  to  a 
musical  recitative  of  his  own  accompanied  by  an  instru- 
ment, while  the  noble  company  of  masquers  perform  in 
dumb  show  the  action  of  the  poem.  At  this  time 
music  is  striving  as  hard  on  its  side  for  separate  exist- 
ence as  poetry  on  its  side  :  until  Palestrina  and  Haydn 
and  Bach  and  Beethoven  finally  bring-out  the  perfect 
glory  of  harmony  and  of  instrumentation,  on  the  one 
hand,  while  Shakspere  and  Milton  and  Keats  and  Ten- 
nyson bring-out  the  perfect  glory  of  poetic  words  on 
the  other  hand.  Now,  we  find  music  almost  exclusively 
expressed  through  the  instrumental  tune  —  a  term  in- 
cluding the  song,  which  belongs  to  the  singing-voice  as 
a  reed-instrument  —  while  poetry  is  expressed  through 
the  speaking-voice  tune.  Now,  the  musician  uses  the 
voice  simply  as  a  reed-instrument,  and  the  word  simply 
as  a  tone-color ;  while  the  word-artist,  the  poet,  uses 
music  only  in  that  .range  of  it  comprehended  between 
the  limits  of  the  speaking-voice.  In  fine  we  have  on 
the  one  hand  the  Symphony  :  on  the  other  the  Tunes 
of  Verse. 

The  advantage  to  each  art  in  thus  setting-up  for 
itself  and  growing  alone  is  seen  in  the  wonderful  devel- 
opment of  both.  The  progress  of  music  since  it  became 
purely  instrumental  and  harmonic  is  one  of  the  most 
striking  phenomena  in  the  history  of  art.  The  body  of 
music  made  before  Palestrina  bears  such  an  insignifi- 
cant proportion  to  that  made  since,  that  one  may  say, 
with  substantial  truth,  music  is  the  product  of  the  last 
three  centuries.  And  if  we  find  music  thus  bounding 
forward  to  an  astonishing  development  as  soon  as  it  has 


Realism  in  Recitative.  271 

freed  itself  from  the  fetters  of  poetry,  of  conventional 
words,  and  has  obtained  a  completely  instrumental 
medium  of  expression  ;  we  are  forced  to  believe  that 
poetry  must  also  find  new  power  and  freedom  in  its 
emancipation  from  the  restraints  of  music  and  its  acqui- 
sition of  an  independent  medium  of  expression  through 
the  speech-tune. 

And  if  we  wish  to  see  how  natural  it  is  to  expect, 
just  at  this  time,  that  poetry  would  thus  free  itself  from 
music  and  take  to  its  own  mouthpiece,  we  have  only  to 
consider  the  attitude  of  a  modern  English-speaking 
audience  towards  the  recitative  of  the  ordinary  Italian 
opera.  The  realism  of  the  modern  hearer  makes  it 
almost  impossible  to  divest  this  recitative  of  a  certain 
absurdity.  The  audience  knows  that  people  in  ordinary 
life  never  sing  at  each  other,  in  this  way ;  the  audience 
also  is  becoming  acquainted  with  the  perfectly  adequate 
speech-tune  for  expressing  all  these  emotions ;  and  so 
it  grows  more  and  more  unwilling  to  forgive  this  un- 
reality, along  with  the  others  of  the  stage.  This  feeling 
of  unreality  in  the  sung  recitative  of  the  opera  is  pre- 
cisely the  same  feeling  which  delights  in  the  realism  of 
the  "reading,"  of  the  speech-tunes;  for  in  the  latter  we 
are  sure  that  the  words  are  being  spoken  in  the  tunes 
that  belong  to  them,  in  the  actual  tunes  of  life,  in  the 
melodies  of  everyday  speech. 

Here  we  open  up  a  fascinating  field  for  a  possible 
extension  of  our  poetic  achievement.  We  have  seen 
what  delicate  variations  in  meaning  were  effected  by 
uttering  the  same  words  to  a  different  tune  :  once  we 
get  a  fair  command  of  all  these  subtle  resources  of 
speech-tunes,  once  we  have  trained  our  ears  to  recog- 
nize and  appreciate  them  properly,  once  we  have  learned 


272  Science  of  English   Verse. 

to  use  them  in  combination  with  the  larger  rhythms 
which  are  easily  within  the  compass  of  our  English 
tongue,  what  strides  may  we  not  take  towards  that  goal, 
—  of  the  complete  expression  of  all  the  complex  needs 
or  hopes  or  despairs  of  modern  life  — ,  which  ever  glit- 
ters through  all  the  clouds  of  commonplace  before  the 
eyes  of  the  fervent  artist ! 

It  remains  now  to  investigate  the  nature  of  speech- 
tunes. 

In  doing  so  we  are  met  at  the  outset  by  the  fact  that 
no  one  has  yet  succeeded  in  devising  a  system  of  nota- 
tion which  could  express  even  those  crude  forms  of  the 
speech-tune  which  have  from  time  to  time  caught  the 
attention  of  this  or  that  elocutionist  or  speculator  as 
"  intonations  "  or  "  inflections."  This  failure  has  caused 
many  minds  to  take  on  a  state  of  vague  scepticism  about 
the  matter,  or  rather  of  hopelessness.  Such  a  result  is 
however  as  illogical  as  it  would  be  to  deny  the  fact  of 
bird-songs  because  we  cannot  note  them  accurately. 

The  reason  for  our  inability  to  note  the  tunes  of 
speech  in  visible  characters  however  lies  in  the  circum- 
stance that  the  scale  of  tones  used  by  the  speaking- 
voice  differs  entirely  from  that  used  in  music.  This 
scale  of  tones  is  explained  in  the  preliminary  chapter, 
to  which  the  reader  may  here  refer.  I  have  there  set 
forth,  in  a  physical  explanation  of  vibratory  phenomena 
which  will  be  intelligible  to  many  who  find  the  "whole 
tones "  and  half-tones "  of  music  insoluble  problems, 
that  the  tones  used  in  music  are  a  special  set  of  tones, 
selected  from  the  body  of  possible  tones  according  to  a 
fixed  law  which  chooses  certain  tones,  rejects  others 
lying  near  them,  chooses  the  next,  and  so  on,  until  the 
scale  is  completed.  This  scale  is  composed  of  so-called 


Musical  Notation  inadequate  for  Speech-Tunes.  273 

"whole  tones  "  and  "half-tones  ;"  and  nothing  less  than 
half-tones  is  employed  in  the  tunes  of  music  —  of,  at 
least,  European  music. 

The  tunes  of  speech,  however,  do  employ  less  inter- 
vals than  the  half-tone ;  and  in  so  far  as  they  do,  they 
are  beyond  the  capacity  of  the  musical  system  of  nota- 
tion. That  system  indicates  a  change  of  pitch  to  the 


the 


extent  of  a  whole  tone  thus :  (fl)     jzzzj:  i  where 

first  note  is  on  a  space  below  the  first  line  of  the  staff, 
and  the  second  is  on  the  first  line  of  a  staff.  Between 
these  two  tones,  only  one  other  is  possible  in  music : 
namely  the  semitone,  which  is  indicated  either  by  adding 


a  #  ("  sharp  ")  to  the  first  note,  thus  (fly  —  ~,  making  it 

«/   *P 
a  semitone  higher,  or  by  adding  a  fr  ("flat  ")  to  the  sec- 

Q 
ond  one,  making  it  a  semitone  lower,1  thus 


But,  the  musical  system  of  notation  being  thus  inad- 


equate to  express  more  than  one  tone  between  (m — 


and  G^_    ~,  it  is  for  that  reason  wholly  inadequate  to 

note  a  speech-tune ;  for,  in  the  scale  of  the  speaking- 
voice,  several   tones  —  certainly  at  least  nine  —  lie  be 


tween  ^H —      =  and  n)       =.     These  thirds   of  tones, 
fourths  of  tones,  fifths  of  tones,  and  so  on  up  to  ninths 

1  As  before  mentioned  it  would  be  a  needless  perplexity  to  explain 
here  the  differences  of  temperament,  which  are  not  at  all  necessary  to  the 
point  in  hand. 


274  Science  of  English   Verse. 

of  tones,  used  by  the  speaking-voice  constitute  the 
characteristic  peculiarity  of  its  tunes  and  present  us 
with  the  obstacle  which  has  defeated  all  attempts  to 
note  them  by  the  limited  resources  of  the  musical  staff. 
There  is  no  musical  character  for  the  third  of  a  tone, 
the  fourth  of  a  tone,  and  so  on,  or  for  any  less  interval 
than  the  half  of  a  tone :  and  thus  at  least  four-fifths  of 
the  tones  actually  used  by  the  speaking-voice  in  its 
tunes  are  incapable  of  expression  by  this  system. 

Of  course  nothing  would  be  easier  than  to  devise  a 
system  which  would  be  adequate  to  the  scale  of  the 
speaking-voice.  It  would  be  necessary  only  to  increase 
very  largely  the  number  of  lines  in  the  staff,  and  to  note 
the  tones  with  the  understanding  that  the  note  on  the 
lowest  line  of  the  staff  should  express  the  lowest  tone 
of  the  speaking-voice,  the  note  in  the  next  space  a  tone 
one-ninth  higher,  the  note  on  the  next  line  a  tone  one- 
ninth  higher,  and  so  on,  ascending  by  the  ninth  of  a 
tone  at  each  step,  to  the  highest  limit  of  the  speaking- 
voice.  This  limit  would  range  through  a  little  over  two 
octaves  for  the  ordinary  voice. 

But  the  difficulty  in  the  construction  of  such  a  scale 
is  that  we  have  not  yet  ascertained  with  precision  the 
power  of  the  ear  in  exactly  co-ordinating  small  intervals 
such  as  the  third,  fourth,  &c.,  of  a  tone.  While  the 
ear,  as  ascertained  by  quite  recent  experiments,  can  un- 
questionably detect  a  difference  in  pitch  between  two 
tones  of  much  less  than  the  ninth  of  a  musical  whole 
tone,  yet  how  minute,  exactly,  may  be  the  interval  be- 
tween two  speaking-voice  tones  beyond  which  the  ear's 
discrimination  is  not  reliable,  is  not  yet  ascertained. 
The  present  writer  hopes  before  long  to  find  this  inter- 
val, through  some  experiments  now  in  progress  ;  but  in 


Capacity  of  Ear  for  Small  Intervals.     275 

the  mean  time,  disregarding  co-ordinations  of  speaking- 
voice  tones  beyond  the  ninth  of  a  tone,  it  is  perhaps 
sufficient  to  say  that  many  reasons  concur  to  authorize 
the  belief  that  very  much  smaller  intervals  than  this 
enter  into  the  composition  of  speech-tunes. 

It  must  be  said  that  the  speech-tune  is  in  its  infancy 
and  that  no  man  can  tell  what  will  be  the  development 
of  the  powers  of  the  ear  in  this  direction.  There  can 
be  no  doubt  that  if,  as  has  been  already  recommended 
to  the  reader,  the  habit  of  consciously  listening  to  the 
tunes  of  speech  should  become  generally  cultivated,  an 
enormous  increase  of  capacity  in  the  general  nicety  of 
discrimination  and  in  the  understanding  of  these  flitting 
melodies  would  result.  Perhaps  few  persons  are  prop- 
erly aware  of  the  endless  capacity  of  the  ear  for  culti- 
vation in  these  matters.  This  capacity  has  been  very 
remarkably  illustrated  in  the  history  of  music  during 
the  past  two  hundred  years.  There  are  notable  in- 
stances that  during  that  time  the  ear  of  the  whole  civil- 
ized race  of  men  has  undergone  such  a  change  by  cul- 
tivation that  chords  which  even  musicians  could  not 
easily  tolerate  have  come  to  be  universally  recognized 
as  not  only  tolerable  but  beautiful. 

One  can  positively  declare  from  personal  experience 
that  the  ear  can  be  brought  to  such  a  capacity  in  co-or- 
dinating these  speech-tunes  that  as  much  more  pleasure 
is  derived  from  them  as  a  fervent  and  skilful  musician 
derives  from  intelligently  following  a  symphony  of 
Beethoven,  when  compared  with  one  whose  uncultivated 
ear  perceives  in  the  mass  of  music  only  a  chaotic 
splotch  of  tones. 

In  the  case  of  rhythm  we  found  that  perhaps  the 
most  primitive  form  of  rhythm-producing  apparatus 


276 


Science  of  English   Verse. 


was  to  be  seen  in  our  own  country,  in  the  "patting" 
which  the  Southern  negroes  so  delight-in  for  a  dance- 
accompaniment.  I  can  now  again  point  to  the  negro  as 
exhibiting  a  most  striking  example  of  the  transition- 
period  from  pure  musical  poetic  recitative  to  the  speech- 
tune,  or  more  refined  recitative.  One  who  has  ever 
heard  a  typical  negro  sermon  will  have  observed  how 
the  preacher  begins,  in  the  ordinary  tones  of  voice, 
announcing  his  text  and  gradually  clearing  the  way  to 
the  personal  appeal  of  the  sermon  :  here  he  rises  into  a 
true  poetic  height,  and  always  falls  into  what  is  an 
approach  to  musical  recitative:  "Yes,  my  bretherin  and 
sisterin,"  (he  will  say)  "  ef  you  don'  make  haste  and 
repent  of  all  your  sins  and  wash  yourself  clean  in  de 
river  of  life,  de  Lord  will  fling  de  las'  man  of  you  down 
into  everlasting  perdition." 

The  transition-nature  of  this,  between  musical  recita- 
tive and  the  speech-tune,  appears  from  the  fact  that  its 
tones  are  almost  exactly  reproducible  in  musical  nota- 
tion. Every  one  who  has  heard  it  will  readily  recognize 
it  in  the  following  scheme  : 


Yes,         my        breth  -  er    -    in      and        sis  -   ter    -    in 


1            |            ^ 

N           h 

C 

fo   £- 

J           J           J 

J           « 

1  0  

Ef            you          don'         make 

n                      A 

—y  1  —       —  •»»•»  1  —      c  — 

haste     and 

A 

re    -   pent 

A 

—X—              -5- 

fm  -                     w     w         «' 

*             J 

*              f     . 

of 


all       yo'  sins         and      wash         yo'    -    self     clean 


Negro  Sermon,  in  Musical  Recitative.    277 


will         fling       de    las'         man      and        wo  -  man      of       you 


all 


in    -   to      ev    -  er  -  last  -  ing        pah    -    di    -    shun! 


The  effect  of  this  upon  the  more  cultivated  ear  is  a 
curious  confirmation  of  the  account  given  of  the  func- 
tion of  speech-tunes.  The  sing-song  is  not  bearable : 
it  is  so  much  less  subtle  and  capable  than  the  speech- 
tune  that  our  minds  take  towards  it  the  same  attitude  as 
toward  the  musical  recitative.1 

And  now,  as  affording  an  instructive  contrast  between 
the  crude  approach  to  the  speech-tune  made  in  the  half- 
chanted  sermon  of  the  negro  just  given  and  the  high- 
est delicacy  of  the  cultivated  speech-tune,  let  the 
student  read  aloud  the  following  sonnet  of  Michael 
Drayton's  which  in  a  still  more  artful  manner  illustrates 
not  only  the  necessity  of  speech-tunes  but  their  power 
of  infusing  subtle,  dainty  and  delicately-shaded  differ- 
ences of  meaning  into  the  same  words.  The  word  "  I  " 
is  here  sometimes  used  as  a  pun  upon  the  word  "  ay  " 
(meaning  yes,  as  in  the  ayes  and  noes),  sometimes  as  a 
liberal  grammatic  application  of  the  pronoun  meaning 

1  So  that  the  long  recitatives  of  Wagner  are  music  of  the  past  rather 
than  of  the  future.  This  great  genius  has  indeed  revived  the  mediaeval 
polyphony  in  modern  instrumentation. 


278  Science  of  English   Verse. 

me,  and  sometimes  in  its  own  signification.  Here  is, 
therefore,  material  for  a  complex  and  delicate  interplay 
between  the  three  meanings  which  the  word  has  as 
word  and  the  other  meanings  given  it  by  the  tune  in 
which  the  voice  pronounces  it.  This  interplay  is  so 
subtle  that  even  with  the  poem  before  the  eye,  I  think 
one  does  not  get  nearly  all  the  cunning  turns  of  thought 
until  after  several  readings  and  some  reflection.  You 
are  however  to  fancy  that  the  poet  is  diligently  making 
love  to  some  saucy,  red-lipped,  slender,  bright-eyed 
beauty  of  the  time,  who  half  in  sport,  half  in  fighting 
off  her  own  love  which  she  does  not  wish  to  hide  and 
yet  is  unwilling  to  display,  continually  drives  him  off 
and  then  lures  him  on,  wholly  by  the  peculiar  tunes  of 
speech  in  which  she  utters  the  monosyllables  no  and  ay. 
At  last  he  grows  into  a  fit  of  desperation,  and  cries 
out  to  her : 

X.  (OF  THE  SONNETS  TO  IDEA.) 

Nothing  but  No  and  I,  and  I  and  No: 
How  falls  it  out  so  strangely  you  reply  ? 
I  tell  you  (fair)  I'll  not  be  answered  so, 
With  this  affirming  No,  denying  I. 
I  say  I  love,  you  slightly  answer  /.- 
I  say,  You  love,  you  peule  me  out  a  No  : 
I  say,  I  die,  you  echo  me  with  I ': 
Save  me,  I  cry,  you  sigh  me  out  a  No. 
Must  Woe  and  I  have  nought  but  No  and  I  ? 
No  I,  am  I,  if  I  no  more  can  have ; 
Answer  no  more,  with  silence  make  reply 
And  let  me  take  myself  what  I  do  crave : 
Let  No  and  I  with  I  and  you  be  so : 
Then  answer  No  and  I,  and  I  and  No. 

And   finally  here  —  in   this   matter  of  the   tunes  of 
English  verse  —  the  sonnets  of  Shakspere  are  supreme 


Tunes  of  Dray  ton  and  Shakspere.        279 

for  subtlety  and  often  for  beauty.  Sometimes  the 
antitheses  of  thought  are  so  manifold,  the  turns  of 
expression  so  doubling  and  twisting,  that  we  can  hardly 
find  any  tunes  for  them  :  they  can  scarcely  be  read 
aloud  !  While  others  such  as  "  When  I  consider  every- 
thing that  grows  "  (XV),  or  "  No  longer  mourn  for  me 
when  I  am  dead  "  (LX),  or  "  Not  from  the  stars  do  I 
my  judgment  pluck"  (XIV),  or  "When  in  disgrace 
with  fortune  and  men's  eyes"  (XXIX),  or  "When  to 
the  sessions  of  sweet  silent  thought "  (XXX),  or  "  Be- 
twixt mine  eye  and  heart  a  league  is  took"  (XLVII), 
or  "  Tir'd  with  all  these  for  restful  death  I  cry " 
(LXVI),  or  "  But  be  contented  :  when  that  fell  arrest " 
(LXXIV),  or  "Then  hate  me  when  thou  wilt;  if  ever, 
now"  (XC),  —  and  many  more  —  create  in  our  voices 
as  we  read  them  such  faint-changing,  indefinable, 
strange,  and  beautiful  tunes  that  we  seem  to  be  speak- 
ing some  language  out  of  a  finer  and  brighter  star  than 
our  own. 


PART    III. 

THE   COLORS    OF   ENGLISH   VERSE. 
CHAPTER   XI. 

OF  COLORS  IN  VERSE,  GENERALLY  J  AND  OF  RHYME, 
SPECIALLY. 

WHEN  the  voice  utters  the  sound  denoted  by  the 
English  character  A,  it  makes,  not  a  single  tone,  but  a 
tone  composed  of  a  number  of  other  tones  :  when  it 
utters  the  sound  denoted  by  the  English  character  O, 
it  again  utters  a  tone  which  is  not  single  but  composed 
of  a  number  of  other  tones  ;  and  the  difference  between 
the  two  sounds,  by  which  the  ear  distinguishes  A  from 
O,  is  due  to  the  fact  that  certain  of  the  ingredient 
sounds  are  prominent  in  A,  while  certain  others  are 
prominent  in  O.  As,  in  making  the  color  purple  out 
of  a  composition  of  red  and  violet,  we  would  have  differ- 
ent shades  of  purple  according  as  we  should  make  the 
red  or  the  violet  more  prominent  in  the  mixture,  so  in 
making  up  a  sound  the  buccal  cavity I  manages,  by 
co-ordinations  of  muscles  which  are  learned  in  child- 
hood, to  render  now  one,  now  another,  ingredient-sound 
more  prominent,  and  thus  to  bring  out  different  shades 
of  tone.  It  is  a  certain  shade  of  tone  which  we  call  A, 

1  Consisting  of  the  mouth,  larynx,  nose,  &c. 
280 


Colors  of  Verse.  281 

another  which  we  call  O,  another  which  we  call  E, 
another  which  we  call  U,  and  so  on  :  and  the  ear  dis- 
criminates one  of  these  shades  of  tone  from  another  as 
the  eye  discriminates  one  shade  of  color  from  another. 

It  is  this  analogy  between  processes  belonging  to 
sound  and  processes  belonging  to  light  which  has  origi- 
nated the  very  expressive  term  "tone-color"  '  in  acous- 
tics. And  inasmuch  as  vowels  and  consonants  are 
phenomena  of  tone-color,  the  present  system  of  verse 
acquires  a  safe  and  sure  basis  of  classification  by  refer- 
ring all  those  effects  of  English  verse  which  depend 
directly  upon  vowels  and  consonants  to  this  fact  and 
assembling  all  such  effects  under  the  term  "  the  colors 
of  English  verse." 

The  reader  in  beginning  the  study  of  these  colors 
should  refresh  the  memory  as  to  their  nature  and  their 
relations  to  musical  tone-color  by  re-reading  the  sections 
of  the  introductory  chapter  in  which  the  physical  ex- 
planation of  tone-color  is  given. 

It  is  important  to  observe  that  the  term  "colors  of 
verse "  is  therefore  a  scientific  term,  and  not  based 
upon  those  fanciful  analogies  which  have  in  a  vaguer 
way  imported  terms  drawn  from  sound  into  the  art  of 
painting  and  —  vice-versa  —  terms  drawn  from  light 
into  the  art  of  music.  These  terms,  though  fanciful, 
have  been  found  of  great  use.  It  would  be  difficult  to 
find  a  word  by  which  we  could  as  well  express  what  has 
come  to  be  known  as  the  "  tone  "  of  a  painting  or  draw- 
ing :  while,  in  the  same  way,  we  could  scarcely  replace 
the  word  "  color  "  as  it  has  come  to  be  applied  to  musi- 
cal compositions.  Perhaps  the  most  unmusical  person, 

1  Otherwise  "Timbre,"  "Clang-tint"  (Mr.  Tyndall,  translating  the 
German  Klang-farbe),  "  Quality."  See  chap.  I,  pp.  28,  29. 


282  Science  of  English   Verse. 

after  hearing  Gade's  Eighth  Symphony,  for  instance, 
would  instantly  recognize  the  felicity  of  the  expression 
upon  being  told  that  it  was  "scarlet  in  color,"  from  a 
certain  pervading  splendor  of  sound  distinguishable 
through  all  the  beautiful  rhythmic,  melodic  and  har- 
monic movements  :  while  on  the  other  hand  a  person 
quite  out  of  the  range  of  painters'  slang  would  under- 
stand what  was  meant  upon  being  told  that  a  certain 
picture  was  "  purple-gray  in  tone." 

But,  recognizing  from  these  brief  examples  the  happy 
way  in  which  expressions  originally  referring  to  phe- 
nomena of  sound  lend  themselves  to  the  description  of 
phenomena  of  light, — and  the  opposite, — the  student 
is  to  bear  in  mind,  as  was  said,  that  the  term  "  colors  of 
verse  "  is  not  drawn  from  these  fanciful  analogies,  but 
refers  to  the  actual  physical  process  which  has  come  to 
be  scientifically  designated  "tone-color,"  as  it  reveals 
itself  in  those  colors  which  we  call  A,  E,  O,  B,  X,  &c. 
in  speech  and  in  verse. 

In  this  connection  it  is  not  a  little  curious  to  remark 
that  one  of  the  phenomena  hereinafter  treated  under  this 
head  —  that  of  rhyme  —  happened  by  a  mere  glance  of 
the  mind  to  be  called  "  color  "  in  verse  long  before  the 
time  when  the  actual  process  now  known  as  tone-color 
was  suspected.  It  is  nearly  three  hundred  years  ago 
since  King  James  in  his  Reulis  &c.  for  verse-making 
said  :  "  First,  ze  sail  keep  just  cullouris  "  (First, ye  shall 
keep  just  colors'),  "  quhairof  the  cautelis  are  thir  "  (where- 
of the  cautions  are  these)  :  "  that  ze  ryme  nocht  twyse  in 
ane  syllabe  "  (that  ye  rhyme  not  twice  in  one  syllabic)  &c. 

I  find  Webbe,  in  1586,  using  the  same  term  as  to 
rhyme  :  in  a  most  contemptuous  abuse  of  rhyme,  which 
he  regarded  as  all  unworthy,  he  declares  that  "our 


Four  Main  Effects  of  Tone -Color  in  Verse.   283 

speeche    .    .    .    might    bee    adorned   with   farre    more 
excellent  collours  then  ryming  is." 

When  the  ear  co-ordinates  a  series  of  verse-sounds 
with  special  reference  to  their  tone-colors,  the  resulting 
perceptions  may  be  considered  under  the  following  four 
divisions,  which  embrace  most  of  such  co-ordinations  as 
are  of  artistic  importance  in  English  verse,  to  wit : 

(1)  Rhyme:  which  involves  both  vowels  and  conso- 
nants ; 

(2)  Vowel-distribution  :  which  involves  the  considera- 
tion of  vowels  alone,  with  reference  to  securing  agreea- 
ble successions  of  them  in  the  line  ; 

(3)  Consonant-distribution  :  which    involves  the  con- 
sideration  of   consonants   alone,  with   reference  to  (a) 
securing  agreeable  junctions  of  the  terminal  consonant 
of   each  word  with  the  initial   consonant   of   the   next 
word,    and   with   reference   to    (&)   arranging    pleasant 
recurrences  of  similar  consonant-colors. 

(4)  Alliteration  :    which    involves    both   vowels   and 
consonants ; 

These  divisions  suggest  a  convenient  order  for  dis- 
cussing the  main  effects  of  tone-color  as  exhibited  in 
the  sounds  of  verse. 

RHYME. 

(i)  Those  whose  lot  it  is  to  receive  for  helpful  criti- 
cism the  poetic  endeavors  of  doubtful  beginners  will 
have  observed  that  very  indefinite  ideas  as  to  what  con- 
stitutes rhyme  in  English  verse  often  prevail  among 
persons  of  considerable  culture.  To  find  "able" 
rhymed  with  "possible"  —  the  common  syllable  "  ble  " 
being  evidently  supposed  to  sanction  the  rhyme ;  or 
"  vine  "  rhymed  with  "  time,"  and  "  vain  "  with  "  name," 


284  Science  of  English   Verse. 

and  "over"  with  "sober,"  and  the  like  ;  is  not  uncom- 
mon. 

In  English  verse,  two  words  which  rhyme  must 
always  have :  the  initial  consonant-sounds  different,  and 
all  the  sounds  following  these  initial  ones  alike x  — 
whether  vowel-sounds,  or  both  vowel  and  consonant- 
sounds.  Thus,  in  the  simple  rhymes  "go"  and  "so," 
the  initial  consonant-sounds  are  "g"  and  "s"  —  that 
is,  different :  while  the  sounds  succeeding  the  initial 
ones  are  both  "o"  —  that  is,  alike.  The  rule  would  of 
course  include  the  possible  case  where  one  of  the  words 
is  without  any  initial  consonant-sound:  as  "oh,"  with 
"  go  "  or  "so,"  is  a  good  rhyme. 

Let  it  be  carefully  observed  that  the  rule  uses  the 
term  " consonant-jw^zd'.r "  and  "vowel-sounds,"  rather 
than  "consonants"  and  "vowels:"  for,  in  English  it 
often  happens  that  not  only  different  sounds  are  indi- 
cated by  the  same  vowel  or  consonant,  but  also  that 
different  vowels  or  consonants  indicate  the  same  sound. 

Thus  "though"  is  a  good  rhyme  with  "so," — and 
follows  the  rule  given  ;  for  the  initial  consonant-sounds 
"th"  and  "s"  are  different,  while  the  vowel-sounds 
and  consonant-sounds  following  them  are  alike  though 
the  vowels  and  consonants  (meaning  vowel-letters  and 
consonant-letters)  standing  for  those  sounds  are  wholly 
unlike.  So  "do"  and  "  few  "  and  "  true  "  and  "  coo  " 
all  rhyme,  though  the  vowel-letters  which  follow  the 
differing  initial  consonants  all  differ  also ;  for  these 
different  letters  express  in  English  utterance  like 
sounds.  Similarly:  "do"  and  "go"  do  not  rhyme: 
for  while  the  initial  consonant-sounds  differ  and  the 

1  The  rule  differs  in  other  languages. 


Historic  Outline  of  English  Rhyme.      285 

following  vowel-letters  are  alike,  the  following  vowel- 
sounds  are  not  alike. 

The  rule  given  applies  as  well  to  rhymes  of  more  than 
one  syllable.  Thus  in  rhymes  like  "slumber"  and 
"number"  —  often  called  "feminine,"  "female,"  or 
"  double-ending"  rhymes  —  the  initial  consonant-sounds 
differ,  and  all  the  following  sounds  agree  :  it  is  there- 
fore a  good  rhyme.  So  in  rhymes  of  three  syllables  — 
the  Italian  "  Sdrucciole" — as  " slumbering "  and  "num- 
bering," "beautiful"  and  "dutiful,"  and  the  like,  we 
always  have  the  initial  consonant-sounds  of  the  two 
words  different,  and  all  the  other  sounds  alike. 

The  office  of  rhyme  in  marking-off  rhythmic  groups 
for  the  ear  has  been  already  explained ;  and  the  present 
discussion  may  therefore  confine  itself  to  (a)  A  Historic 
Outline  of  rhyme  in  English  poetry  particularly  as  bear- 
ing upon  the  proposed  rhyme-tests  for  Shakspere,  and 
(b)  Practical  Cautions  for  its  use  in  verse. 

(a)  The  employment  of  rhyme  in  English  verse  as  a 
pleasant  effect  upon  the  ear  dates  from  a  very  early 
period.  It  is  often  said  to  have  been  brought  from 
Eastern  sources  ;  but  we  find  rhymes  in  very  early  An- 
glo-Saxon poems,  and  one  —  called  by  Conybeare  "The 
Riming  Poem,"  a  strange  and  obscure  paraphrase  upon 
some  passages  in  the  Book  of  Job  —  is  written  entirely 
in  a  remarkably  effective  succession  of  mostly  double, 
or  feminine,  rhymes.  For  example,  in  the  beautiful 
Anglo-Saxon  poem  of  The  Phoenix,  the  following  coup- 
let, which  occurs  in  a  fervent  description  of  Paradise, 
or  the  Happy  Land,  presents  some  striking  rhymes : 

Ne  forstes  f no's t,  ne  fyres  blast, 
Ne  haggles  hryre,  ne  hrimes  dryrej 


286 


Science  of  English   Verse. 


while  the  rhyming  poem,  which  is  given  in  the  note  x 
below  as  being  probably  the   first  entire  English  poem 


1  RHYMING   POEM. 

TYPIC   SCHEME. 

t 

t 

f 

r 

f 

Wic 

D 

-    fer 

wong  - 

um 

0 

P 

f 

f 

Wen 

- 

nan 

gong   - 

um 

t 

t 

c 

r 

t 

Lis  - 

se 

mid 

long  - 

um 

Leo  - 

ma 

ge  - 

tong  - 

um. 

Me  lifes  onlah 
Se  this  leoht  onwrah, 
And  thaet  torhte  geteoh 
Tillice  onwrah. 

Glaed  was  ic  gliwum, 
Glenged  hiwum, 
Blissa  bleoum 
Blostma  hiwum. 

Secgas  mec  segon 
Symbel  ne  alegon 
Feorh-giefe  gefegon. 
Fraetwed  wsegum 


Wic  ofer  wongum, 
Wennan  gongum 
Lisse  mid  longum 
Leoma  getongum ; 


Tha  W3ES  waestmum  aweaht 
World  onspreht, 
Under  roderum  aweaht 
Raed  maegne  ofer  theaht. 


He  raised  me  to  life 
Who  displayed  this  light, 
And  this  bright  possession 
Bountifully  disclosed. 

Glad  was  I  in  glee, 
Adorned  with  [fair]  colors, 
With  the  hues  of  bliss 
And  the  tints  of  blossoms. 

Men  would  say  concerning  me 
That  perpetually  I  should  not  desist 
To  rejoice  in  the  gifts  [blessings]  of 

life. 
Adorned  in  its  paths 

[Was  my]  habitation  on  the  earth 
[So   that   I   might]   expect    in   my 

journeyings 
Favor  with  long 
Dispensations  of  light  (felicity) ; 

Then  was  I  abounding  in  fruits 
And  nourishing  in  the  world, 
Springing  up  beneath  the  heavens, 
And  excelling  in  the  force  of  coun- 
sel. 


Anglo-Saxon  Rhyming  Poem.  287 


in  rhyme,  shows  great  skill  in  the  use  of  this  effect,  and 
makes  a  most   sonorous   piece   of   speech-sound  when 


Giestas  gengdon 
Ger-scype  mengdon, 
Lisse  lengdon, 
Luftum  glengdon. 

Scrifen  scrad  glad 
Thurh-gescad  inbrad 
Wags  on  lagu-streame  lad 
Thaer  me  leothu  ne  biglad. 
Haefde  ic  haeanne  had 
Ne  waes  me  in  healle  gad 
Thaet  thaer  rof  word  rad ; 
Oft  thaer  rinc  gebad 

Thaet  he  in  sele  saege 
Sine  gewaege. 

Thegnum  gethyhte  .  .  . 
Thendum  waes  ic  maegen, 

Horsce  mec  heredon, 
Hilde  generedon, 
Faegre  feredon, 
Feondon  biweredon. 

Swa  mec  hyht-giefu  heold 
Hyge  Dryht  befeold ; 
Stathol  aehtum  steald, 
Stepe-gongum  weald ; 
Swilce  eorthe  ol 
Ahte  ic  ealdor  stol ; 
Galdor  wordum  gol, 
Gomel  sibbe  neof  oil. 


Ac  waes  gefest  gear, 
Gellende  sner, 
Wuniende  waer. 
Wil-bcc  be  scaer. 


Guests  came 

They  intermixed  in  commerce, 
They  prolonged  my  pleasures, 
And  adorned  me  with  luxuries. 

Vestments  of  joy  carefully  wrought 

Shed  around  in  breadth 

Were  led  over  the  ocean  flood 

Where  my  vessel  miscarried  not. 

I  held  a  high  state 

Nor  was  there  in  my  hall  any  peer 

Who  would  utter  a  haughty  word 

there ; 
Warrior  often  begged  there 

[For  the  treasures]  which  he  beheld 

in  my  court, 
The  weighed  silver. 

Thence  was  I  powerful 

Warriors  obeyed  me, 
Delivered  me  in  battle, 
Fairly  supported  me, 
Protected  me  from  enemies. 

So  faithfully  the  gifts  of  hope 
Did  the  Lord  pour  into  my  mind; 
He  established   a  firm  foundation 

for  my  possessions, 
And  directed  my  steps  in  their  goings 
So  in  the  earth 
I  possessed  a  royal  seat ; 
I  sang  magic  strains, 
And  grown  old  in  peace,  I  had  no 

disgrace. 

But  I  was  formerly  firm, 
Affluent 
Abiding  safely 

With  an  abundant  stream  [of  good] 
by  my  portion. 


288 


Science  of  English   Verse. 


properly  read  aloud,  even  to  those  who  do  not  under- 
stand its  meaning. 


Scealcas  waeron  scearpe 
Scyl  waes  hearpe. 


My  servants  were  sagacious, 
There  was  skill  in  their  harping. 


Hlude  hlynede, 
Hleothor  dynede, 
Swegl-rad  swinsade 
Swithe,  ne  minsade. 


It  resounded  loud, 
The  strain  re-echoed, 
Melody  was  heard 
Powerfully,  nor  did  it  cease. 


Burg  sele  beofode, 
Beorht  hlifade ; 
Ellen  eacnade, 
Ead  eacnade ; 
Freaum  frodade, 
Frornum  godade, 
Mod  maegnade, 
Mine  faegnade. 
Freow  telgade, 
Tir  welgade, 

Blaed  blissade, 
Gold  gearwade, 
Gim  hwearfade, 
Sine  searwade, 
Sib  nearwade ; 


The  hall  vibrated, 

Splendor  shone ; 

My  spirit  expanded, 

My  happiness  increased ; 

I  was  prudent  among  princes, 

And  successful  among  the  brave, 

Powerful  in  mind, 

Rejoiced  in  spirit. 

My  tree  flourished, 

My  sway  increased, 

Fruit  blessed  me, 
Gold  was  at  hand, 
Gems  poured  around  me, 
Treasures  tempted, 
Kindred  drew  near ; 


From  ic  waes  in  fraetwum 
Freolic  in  in-geatwum, 


I  was  brave  in  adornment, 
And  graceful  in  carriage, 


Waes  min  dream  dryhtlic, 
Drohtad  hyhtlic ; 


My  glory  was  lordly, 
Conversation  joyful ; 


Foldan  ic  freothode, 
Folcum  ic  leothode ; 
Lif  waes  min  longe 
Leodum  ingemonge, 
Tirum  getonge 
Teala  gehonge. 


I  was  benevolent  to  the  land 

I  sang  lays  to  the  people ; 

My  life  was  long 

Among  my  nation, 

My  condition  in  my  dominions 

Was  happily  supported. 


Rhymes  of  Aldhelm. 


289 


The  Carmen  Aldhelmi  which  occurs  with  the  Letters 
of  Boniface  shows  us  —  if  it  be  really  the  song  of  our 


Nu  min  hrether  is  hreoh 
Heoh-sithum  sceoh, 
Nyd  bisgum  neah ; 
Gewited  nihtes  infleah 

Se  aer  in  daege  was  dyre ; 
Scrithed  nu  deop  feor, 

Brond  hord  geblowen 
Breostum  inforgrowen ; 
Flyhtum  to-flowen 
Flah  is  geblowen 

Miclum  in  gemynde 
Modes  gecynde ; 

Greteth  ongrynde, 
Grorn  ofen  pynde. 

Bealo-fus  byrneth, 
Bittre  wyrneth ; 

Wid  sith  onginneth, 
Sar  ne  sinneth, 
Sorgum  cinnith, 
Blaed  his  blinnith, 
Blisse  linnath, 
Listum  linneth, 
Lustum  ne  cinneth. 

Dreamas  swa  her  gedresath, 
Dryht  scyre  gehreosath ; 
Lif  her  men  forleosath, 
Leahtras  oft  geceosath. 
Treow  thrag 
Is  to-trag, 
Seo  untrume  genag 
Steapum  eatole  misthah 
Ond  eal  stund  genag 


But  now  my  breast  is  stormy 
Shaken  by  the  season  of  woe, 
Need  is  nigh ; 

And  he   is   tormented   at  the   ap- 
proach of  night 

Who  before  in  the  day  was  highly 

esteemed ; 
Deep  fire  now  is  wrapt  around, 

And  the  hoard  of  brands  inflamed 
Increasing  round  his  breast ; 
Flowing  in  flights 
The  dart  is  blown  forth 

Against  the  haughty  of  soul 
In  the  disposition  of  his  mind ; 

He  lamenteth  in  the  abyss, 
Pained  in  the  furnace  of  woe. 

Bale-fire  burneth, 
Bitterly  warneth ; 

A  wide  journey  beginneth, 

Affliction  ceaseth  not ; 

He  exclaimeth  in  sorrows, 

His  joy  hath  ceased, 

His  bliss  hath  declined, 

He  is  fallen  from  his  delights  ; 

He  exclaimeth  not  in  happiness. 

Thus  glories  here  are  prostrated, 
And  the  lordly  lot  brought  low ; 
[So]  men  here  lose  their  life, 
And  often  choose  crimes ; 
A  faithful  course 
Is  withdrawn, 

And  that  which  hath  no  firmness 
aboundeth, 


290 


Science  of  English   Verse. 


Aldhelm  —  an  Anglo-Saxon  poet  rhyming  Latin  words 
together  certainly  as  early  as  the  beginning  of  the  8th 


Swa  nu  world  wendeth 
Wyrde  sendeth 
And  hetes  henteth 
Haelethe  scyndeth, 

Wer  cynge  witeth, 

Wael  gar  sliteth, 

Flah  mail  fliteth, 

Flan  man  hwiteth, 

Burg  sorg  biteth ; 

Bald  aid  thwiteth, 

Wraec-faec  writhath, 

Wrathath  smiteth ; 

Sin-grynd  sidath, 

Saecre  [saearo]  fearo  glideth, 


Grom  torn  grasfeth, 
Graeft  hafath, 

Searo  hwit  solath, 
Sumur  het  colath, 


Thus  now  the  world  wendeth ; 
Fate  sendeth  [men  to  their  doom] 
And  hate  pursueth; 
Chieftains  oppress, 

War-kings  go  forth, 

The  dart  of  slaughter  pierceth, 

The  violent  arrow  flieth, 

The  spear  smiteth  them, 

Sorrow  devoureth  the  city ; 

The  bold  man  in  age  decayeth, 

The  season  of  vengeance  torment- 

eth, 

And  enmity  easily  assaileth ; 
The  abyss  of  sin  increaseth, 
Sudden  treachery  glideth  in, 

Grim  rage  grieveth, 
Woe  possesseth, 

Sere  soileth  white, 
Summer's  heat  cooleth, 


Fold  fela  fealleth, 
Feond-scire  wealleth, 
Eorth  maegen  ealdath, 
Ellen  colath. 


Many  things  fall  to  the  ground, 
The  portion  of  strife  aboundeth, 
Earthly  power  groweth  old, 
Courage  cooleth. 


Me  thaet  wyrd  gewaef, 
And  gehwyrt  forgeaf 
Thaet  ic  grofe.  graef. 
And  thaet  grimme  grasf 

Flean  flaesce  ne  maeg ; 
Thon  flah  hred  daeg, 

Nid  grapum  nimeth 
Thon  seo  neah  becymeth  ; 


This  Fate  wove  for  me, 

And  as  decree  assigned  it 

That  I  should  grieve  with  this  grief. 

And  the  grim  grave 

Flesh  may  not  flee  ; 

Soon  as  the  rapid  day  hath  flown 

Necessity  seizeth  in  her  grasp. 
When  she  cometh  nigh; 


Early  Latin  Rhymes. 


291 


century,  in  the  following  fashion,  (the  rhythm  is  that  of 
The  Raven 

Once  up-on  a  mid-night  drear-y, 
Lect  •  or  cast-e  cath  -  o  -  lie  -  e 
While  I  pond-ered  weak  and  wear-y\ 
At   -  que  ob  -  ses    ath  -  let  -  ic  -  e' 

Lector  caste  catholice 
Atque  obses  athletice 
Tuis  pulsatus  precibus 
Obnixe  flagitantibus 

frc. 

Usque  diram  Dornoniam 
Per  carentum  Cornubiam 
Florulentis  cespitibus 
Et  fcecundis  graminibus. 


Seo  me  ethles  onfonn, 

And  mec  her  heardes  onconn. 


Thonne  lichoma  ligeth, 
Lima  wyrm  friteth, 
Ac  him  wen  ne  gewigeth, 
And  tha  wist  gehygeth ; 

Oththaet  beath  tha  ban  an ; 

And  act  nyhstan  nan 
Nefne  se  nede  tan 
Balawan  her  gehlotene. 
Ne  bith  se  hlisa  adroren 


fc\  thaet  eadig  gethenceth 
He  hine  the  oftor  swenceth, 


Byrgeth  him  tha  bitran  synne, 
Hogath  to  thaere  betran  wynne. 


She  that  hath  taken  me  from  my 
country 

And  here  exerciseth  me  in  hard- 
ship. 

Then  the  corpse  lieth, 
Worm  fretteth  the  limbs, 
And  the  worm  departeth  not, 
And  there  chooseth  its  repast, 

Until  there  be  bone  only  left; 

And  at  the  last  there  is  no  one 
But  that  his  fate  compels 
A  prey  to  that  destructive  host 
Nor  shall   he  be  conversant  with 
happiness 

Ere  the  blessed  one  [God]  thinketh 
That  he  hath  sufficiently  often  af- 
flicted him, 

And  burieth  for  him  bitter  sin, 
And  exalteth  to  the  better  joy. 


292 


Science  of  English   Verse. 


Again,  the  following  couplet  out  of  a  poem  preserved 
in  William  of  Malmesbury,  probably  of  the  time  of 
Athelstan,  shows  Latin  hexameters  rhymed  not  only 
at  the  end  but  in  the  body  of  the  line  —  an  effect  which 
this  specimen  will  show  might  be  capable  of  great 
splendor  with  the  majestic  Latin  vocables  : 


r  f  c 

r  t  : 

r  r 

r  r 

Reg-i  -  a 

pro-gen  -  i  - 

es  pro- 

dux  -  it 

r  c  c 

r  r 

r  r 

r  r 

Cum  ten  -  e  • 

bris  nost  - 

ris     il  - 

lux  -  it 

r  r 

r  :  t 

r  r 

dux  -  it 

no  -  bil-e 

stam-ma 

r  r 

r  1  t 

r  r 

lux  -  it 

splend-id  -  a 

gem-ma. 

Gemon  mortha  lisse, 
Her  sinden  miltsa  blisse 

Hyhtlice  in  heofona  rice. 
Uton  nu  halgum  gelice 

Scyldum  byscyrede, 
Scyndum  generede, 
Wommum  biwerede, 


Remember  death's  favor, 
Here  are  merciful  blessings, 

Full  of  hope  in  heaven's  kingdom. 
Ah,  may  we  be  like  the  saints 

Washed  from  our  sins, 
Liberated  from  condemnation, 
Protected  from  terror, 


Thaer  mon  cyn  mot 
For  meotude  rot, 

Sothne  God  geseon 
And  aa  in  sibbe  gefean. 


Where  mankind  shall 
Before  their  Creator  splendid, 

Behold  the  true  God 

And  joy  in  peace  evermore. 


Text  from  Conybeare.  I  have,  however,  changed  his  translation  in 
some  points  where  he  seems  manifestly  wrong ;  and  in  the  line  "  Bealo-fus 
byrneth  "  I  have  ventured  to  conjecture  Bea.\o-/yr  (bale-fire)  for  the  text. 
In  several  places  the  poem  is  so  obscure  that  interpretation  is  guess-work, 
and  here  Conybeare's  guesses  are  left  untouched.  Of  course  textual,  or 
any  further,  criticism  would  not  be  in  place  for  the  present  purpose,  and 
it  seems  proper  only  to  cite  the  inquirer  to  the  original  poem  in  the  Codex 
Exoniensis,  or  Exeter  Book,  and  to  Conybeare's  Illustrations  of  Anglo- 
Saxon  Poetry,  London,  1826. 


Rhyme  against  Rhythm  in  the  i6th  Century.  293 

In  the  Orm ulum,  of  the  early  I3th  century,  the 
rhymes,  though  not  continuous,  are  too  frequent  to  be 
unintentional ;  and  from  this  time  on  a  vast  amount  of 
rhymed  English  popular  poetry  (of  which  the  student 
will  find  many  interesting  specimens  in  Warton's  His- 
tory of  English  Poetry,  in  Halliwell  and  Wright's  Reli- 
quia  Antique,  in  the  publications  of  the  Shakspere 
Societies,  The  Roxburghe  Club,  The  Chaucer  Society, 
The  Early  English  Text  Society)  appears  to  have  been 
written,  besides  the  greater  works  known  to  all. 

Thus  we  find  rhyme  appearing  continuously  in  our 
poetry  from  the  beginning  of  it  to  the  present  day.  In 
fact,  it  had  appeared  so  continuously  that  about  the  last 
quarter  of  the  i6th  century  the  word  "rhyme"  had 
come  to  be  pretty  nearly  synonymous  with  vernacular 
poetry  in  England  as  opposed  to  the  more  dignified 
Greek  and  Latin  verse,  and  a  strong  party  was  formed 
in  opposition  to  all  rhyming  verse.  The  notion  got 
abroad  —  and  how  long  it  prevailed  has  been  shown 
in  the  Preface  to  this  book  —  that  rhythm  was  a  prop- 
erty peculiar  to  the  classic  verse  and  did  not  exist 
in  English  verse  ;  whence  the  former  was  distinctly 
spoken  of  as  rhythm  and  the  latter  as  rhyme.  Sir 
Philip  Sidney  lays  down  this  distinction  quite  explicitly 
in  the  Apologiefor  Poetrie:  "  Now  of  versifying  there  are 
two  sorts,  the  one  Auncient,  the  other  Moderne ;  the 
Auncient  marked  the  quantitie  of  each  silable  and  ac- 
cording to  that  framed  his  verse  ;  the  Moderne,  observ- 
ing only  number  (with  some  regarde  of  the  accent)  the 
chiefe  life  of  it,  standeth  in  that  lyke  sounding  of  the 
-words  which  we  call  ryme."  Hereupon  Sir  Philip,  Fulk 
Greville,  Spenser,  Gabriel  Harvey  and  others  formed 
their  club  or  society  called  the  Areopagus,  which  was 


294  Science  of  English   Verse. 

to  bring  back  the  English  verse  from  the  error  of 
rhyme  into  the  orthodoxy  of  classic  rhythm  ;  for  which 
purpose  the  Areopagus  set  to  work  at  laying  down  a 
rigid  law  for  the  quantity  of  every  syllable  in  English. 
Of  course  it  was  not  long  before  Spenser,  who  had  an 
ear  that  knew  wherein  music  consisted,  gradually  drew- 
out  from  this  folly. 

But  others  grew  all  the  more  outspoken  against 
rhyme.  Puttenham  has  frequent  side-flings  at  it :  as 
that  "about  the  time  of  Charlemaines  raigne  .  .  .  many 
simple  clerks,  .  .  .  following  either  the  barbarous  rude- 
ness of  the  time  or  els  their  own  idle  inventions,  .  .  . 
thought  themselves  no  small  fooles  when  they  could 
make  their  verses  goe  all  in  ryme  ; "  J  and  in  another 
place  he  speaks  of  the  word  rhyme  as  "  an  abusion  "  of 
the  word  rhythmus  from  which  he  considers  it  derived 
in  English. 

Webbe,  again,  becomes  quite  furious  against  rhyme : 
"...  Ryme  or  like  ending  of  verses  :  which  though  it 
is  of  least  importance,  yet  hath  won  such  credite  among 
us,  that  of  all  other  it  is  most  regarded  of  the  greatest 
part  of  Readers.  And  surely  as  I  am  pers waded,  the 
regarde  of  wryters  to  this  hath  beene  the  greatest  decay 
of  that  good  order  of  versifying  which  might  ere  this 
have  beene  established  in  our  speeche  :"  and  in  another 
place  he  abuses  "  the  uncountable  rabble  of  ryming 
Ballet"  (ballad)  "makers  and  compilers  of  senseless 
sonets"  as  a  "rout  of  ragged  Rymers,"  declaring  that 
"  every  one  that  can  frame  a  Booke  in  Ryme,  though 
for  want  of  matter  it  be  but  in  commendations  of  Cop- 
per noses  or  Bottle  Ale,  wyll  catch  at  the  Garlande  due 
to  poets." 

1  P.  28,  Arte  of  English  Poesie,  Arber  Reprint. 


Shakspere's  Disuse  of  Rhyme.  295 

Roger  Ascham  in  The  Scholemaster  was  equally 
severe. 

To  the  same  effect,  though  in  somewhat  more  genial 
mood,  I  find  Ben  Jonson  making  rhymes  against  rhym- 
ing. 

These  expressions,  particularly  those  of  Webbe,  will 
prepare  the  reader  to  see  a  great  disdain  cropping  out 
between  the  lines  of  that  famous  fling  at  Shakspere  in 
poor  Robert  Greene's  Groatsworth  of  Wit,  in  which 
Greene  accuses  the  rising  poet  of  thinking  himself 
"  able  to  bumbast  out  a  blank  verse  "  with  the  rest  of 
them  :  as  if  young  master  Shakspere  should  take  his 
place  with  Webbe's  rout  of  ragged  Rymers  and  not 
presume  so  high  as  rhythmic  verse. 

I  have  brought  the  sketch  of  English  rhyme  to  the 
particular  point  now  arrived  at,  as  contributing  to 
enlarge  the  reader's  view  of  an  important  test  which 
has  been  proposed,  in  addition  to  the  metrical  tests 
described  in  Part  I.,  for  ascertaining  the  chronology  of 
Shakspere's  plays.  This  test  is  based  upon  the  idea 
that  Shakspere  grew  more  and  more  out  of  liking  with 
rhyme  as  he  became  older,  and  that  this  dislike  shows 
itself  in  the  regularly  decreasing  frequency  of  rhymes 
as  we  go  from  his  early  plays  to  his  late  ones.  The 
circumstance  that  a  general  decrease  of  rhymes  does 
occur  had  been  noticed  as  early  as  1778  by  Malone. 
"In  the  whole  number  of  pieces"  —  he  means  by 
"pieces"  Shakspere's  plays  —  "which  were  written 
antecedent  to  the  year  1600  .  .  .  more  rhyming  coup- 
lets are  found,  than  in  all  the  plays  composed  subse- 
quently to  that  year.  .  .  .  As,  therefore  most  of  his 
early  productions  are  characterized  by  the  multitude  of 
similar  terminations"  (i.e.,  rhymes)  "which  they  ex- 


296  Science  of  English   Verse. 

hibit,  whenever  of  two  early  pieces  it  is  doubtful  which 
preceded  the  other,  I  am  disposed  to  believe,  (other 
proofs  being  wanting,)  that  play  in  which  the  greater 
number  of  rhymes  is  found,  to  have  been  first  com- 
posed. "  I  Nearly  a  hundred  years  afterwards  the  Rev. 
F.  G.  Fleay  carried  out  the  idea  thus  suggested  by 
Malone  and  constructed  a  table  showing  the  number  of 
rhymes  in  each  play.  While  it  can  scarcely  be  said 
that  the  percentages  founded  on  these  tables  justified 
the  hopes  which  were  originally  built  upon  the  rhyme 
test,  no  doubt  can  be  felt  that  it  furnished  a  valuable 
adjunct  to  the  other  tests  and  added  one  more  means  of 
checking  and  verifying  conclusions.  The  student  will 
find  Mr.  Fleay's  paper  on  the  rhyme-test  as  applied  to 
Shakspere,  together  with  an  instructive  debate  upon  it 
by  eminent  Shakspere  scholars,  set  forth  in  The  Trans- 
actions of  the  New  Shakspere  Society  for  1874. 

PRACTICAL    CAUTIONS    FOR   THE    USE    OF    RHYME    IN    ENG- 
LISH   VERSE. 

(b]  Whether,  with  Shakspere  and  Ben  Jonson  and 
the  i6th  century  critics,  the  world  will  outgrow  the  use 
of  rhyme,  would  be  too  much  to  discuss  here.  Mean- 
time, several  cautions  suggest  themselves  which  will  be 
of  use  to  the  learner. 

First  and  foremost :  look  upon  the  rhyme  as  merely 
the  good  garment  of  reason,  and  beware  leaving  the 
coat  with  no  body  in  it.  On  this  point  I  cannot  do 
better  than  quote  gentle  old  George  Gascoigne.  "  I 
would  exhorte  you  also  to  beware  of  rime  without  rea- 
son :  my  meaning  is  hereby  that  your  rime  leade  you 
not  from  your  firste  Invention,  for  many  wryters  when 

1  Note,  in  Bell's  Shakspere,  vol.  II.,  p.  315. 


Rhymes  perfect,  or  none.  297 

they  have  laid  the  platform  of  their  invention,  are  yet 
drawen  sometimes  (by  ryme)  to  forget  it  or  at  least  to 
alter  it,  as  when  they  cannot  readily  finde  out  a  worde 
whiche  maye  rime  to  the  first  .  .  .  they  do  then  eyther 
botche  it  up  with  a  worde  that  will  ryme  (howe  small 
reason  soever  it  carie  with  it)  or  els  they  alter  their  first 
worde  and  so  percase  decline  or  trouble  their  former 
Invention  :  But  do  you  alwayes  hold  your  first  deter- 
mined Invention,  and  do  rather  searche  the  bottome  of 
your  braynes  for  apte  words,  than  chaunge  good  reason 
for  rumbling  rime. "  '  The  words  which  I  have  itali- 
cized at  the  conclusion  contain  the  root  of  the  whole 
matter;  and  the  resources  of  our  tongue  are  so  great 
that  we  are  entitled  to  hold  every  poet  down  to  the 
strictest  measure  of  the  law  which  forbids  the  least 
intrusion  of  the  rhyme  as  rhyme  —  that  is,  as  any  thing 
less  than  the  best  word  in  the  language  for  the  idea  in 
hand. 

Secondly :  having  thus  secured  reason  in  rhyme,  one 
cannot  do  better  than  quote,  for  the  next  caution,  a 
remark  of  Puttenham's  in  beginning  his  8th  chapter. 
It  may  be  well  to  premise  that  the  word  "  maker  "  used 
in  this  citation  was  the  common  term  in  his  time,  par- 
ticularly at  the  north,  for  a  poet :  it  means,  indeed,  the 
same,  "maker"  being  merely  the  Englishing  of  "poet" 
which  is  from  noitw,  to  make.  "  Now  "  says  Puttenham 
"  there  cannot  be  in  a  maker  a  fowler  fault,  then  "... 
(than)  ...  "by  untrue  orthographic  to  wrench  his 
words  to  helpe  his  rime,  for  it  is  a  signe  that  such  a 
maker  is  not  copious  in  his  owne  language,  or  (as  they 
are  wont  to  say)  not  halfe  his  crafts  maister.  .  .  .  For 

1  Certayne  Notes  &c. :  pp.  35-6  of  The  Stcele  Glas,  Arber  Reprint. 


298  Science  of  English   Verse. 

a  licentious  maker  is  in  truth  but  a  bungler  and  not  a 
poet." 

In  short,  in  this  caution  as  in  the  last,  I  can  again 
say  that  the  resources  of  our  English  tongue  are  such 
that  we  are  entitled  to  hold  the  poet  always  down  to 
the  rigid  mark  of  perfection.  If  the  rhyme  is  not  per- 
fect, if  it  demands  any  the  least  allowance,  it  is  not 
tolerable  :  throw  it  away. 

Puttenham's  indignation  over  an  example  he  gives  of 
a  poet  who  in  extremity  for  a  rhyme  had  to  fly  to 
another  language  is  most  comical.  ..."  Having  no 
word  at  hand  to  rime  to  this  word  (joy)  he  made  his 
other  verse  end  in  (Roy)  saying  very  impudently  thus, 

O  mightie  Lord  of  love,  dame  Venus1  onely  joy, 
Who  art  the  highest  God  of  any  heavenly  Roy, 

which  word  was  never  yet  received  in  our  language  for 
an  English  word." 

It  is  difficult  to  fancy  what  might  have  been  Putten- 
ham's feelings  if  he  had  seen  a  still  more  "impudent" 
foray  upon  the  French  language  made  in  later  times  by 
Churchill,  with  witty  design  — 

Next  came  the  treasurer  of  either  house, 
One  with  full  purse,  t'other  with  not  a  sous, 

or  Mr.  Thackeray's  sonnet  of  Jeames  on  the  deer  killed 
by  Prince  Albert  — 

Some  forty  ed  of  sleak  and  hantlered  deer 
In  Cobug  (where  such  hanimals  abound) 

Was  shot,  as  by  the  newspaper  I  'ear, 

By  Halbert,  usband  of  the  British  crownd. 

According  to  the  rule  of  this  caution  many  rhymes 
considered  "allowable"  fifty  years  ago  must  now  be  let 
alone,  as  "join'd"  and  "mind,"  "brow"  and  "glow," 


Rhymes  not  too  far  apart.  299 

"good  "  and  "flood,"  and  the  like  ;  even  later  than  that 
"abroad  "  has  been  rhymed  with  "  Lord."  The  student 
may  rest  with  confidence  in  the  belief  that  no  rhyme 
but  a  perfect  rhyme  is  ever  worth  a  poet's  while. 

Thirdly :  as  to  the  position  of  rhymes  in  English 
verse  there  is  no  law  but  the  poet's  own  ear.  They 
may  be  at  the  end,  the  middle  and  end,  or  the  beginning 
of  a  line,  or  irregularly  disposed,  at  the  maker's  pleas- 
ure. It  is  true  Puttenham  thought  that  "rime  or 
Concorde  is  not  commendably  used  both  in  the  end  and 
middle  of  a  verse;"  but  he  had  not  seen  Tennyson's 

song, 

The  splendor  falls  on  castle-«/«//j 

And  snowy  summits  old  in  story, 
The  long  light  shakes  across  the  lakes 

And  the  wild  cataract  leaps  in  glory, 

which  is  perfect  music. 

But  it  may  be  of  profit  to  notice  that  the  opposite 
fault — of  placing  the  rhymes  too  far  apart  —  is  often 
committed  in  English  verse.  For,  the  reason  of  rhyme 
is  that  the  ear  takes  "pleasure  to  hear  the  like  tune 
reported,  and  to  feele  his  returne ; "  and  if  the  rhymes 
be  too  far  apart  a  greater  trouble  happens  than  that 
which  Puttenham  quaintly  condemns  as  incident  to  the 
over-long  line  in  verse :  it  "  kepeth  the  eare  too  long 
from  his  delight,  which  is  to  heare  the  cadence  or  the 
tuneable  accent  in  the  ende  of  the  verse:"  and  hence 
the  "delight,"  whatever  it  may  be,  is  lost. 

Fourthly  :  rhymes  of  more  than  two  syllables  are  to 
be  handled  with  care,  as  easily  running  to  the  finical, 
and  passing  into  the  province  of  the  comic  verse-maker. 
For  instance,  the  couplet  quoted  by  Coleridge  in  the 
Biographia  Literana:  a  Welshman  having  failed  to 


300  Science  of  English   Verse. 

send  a  present  of  a  hare  to  a  friend  as  promised,  the 
friend  wrote  him, 

Say,  O  thou  son  of  great  Cadwallader, 

Hast  sent  the  hare,  or  hast  thou  swallowed  her  ? 

Or,  again,  the  rhyme  made  by  the  late  Thomas  Bu- 
chanan Read  on  Popocatapetl,  (communicated  to  me  by 
his  friend  Mr.  John  R.  Tait) : 

Po  -  po  -  cat  -  a  -  petl ! 
Oh,  oh,  what  a  kettle 
To  boil  on,  &c. 

Perhaps  the  comical  tendency  of  rhymes  of  more  than 
two  syllables  in  English  is  due  to  the  fact  that  the  more 
dignified  function  of  rhyme  is  as  a  rhythm-marker  (as 
hereinbefore  detailed)  and  that  whenever  rhyme  ap- 
pears as  mere  jingle,  the  result  is  loss  of  dignity; 
wherefore,  since  one-syllable  rhymes  mark-off  rhythm 
as  well  as  any  larger-syllabled  ones,  the  excess  is  liable 
to  seem  childish,  if  not  professedly  comic. 

Puttenham,  for  a  different  reason,  condemns  many- 
syllabled  rhymes.  ".  .  .  Wordes  of  exceeding  great 
length,  which  have  been  fetched  from  the  Latine  ink- 
horne  or  borrowed  of  strangers,  the  use  of  them  in 
ryme  is  nothing  pleasant." 

Fourthly  :  avoid  neighboring  rhymes  which  are  very 
nearly  alike  in  tone-color.  For  example,  if  two  lines 
rhyme  with  "name"  and  "fame,"  do  not  have  the  two 
next  lines  rhyming  in  "vain"  and  "stain"  or  similar 
near  shades  of  vowel-color.  The  result  is  like  two  con- 
tiguous shades  of  pink  in  a  dress  :  one  of  the  rhymes  will 
seem  faded.  Daniel,  in  one  of  his  most  beautiful  sonnets 
to  Delia,  has  permitted  a  fault  of  this  sort  to  escape  him  : 
the  first  four  lines  end  respectively  in  "  haires  "  (hairs) 


Near  Shades  of  Color  in  Rhymes.       301 

"neere"  (near)  "cleares"  (clears)  and  "  deere  "  (dear), 
which  are  so  near  in  color  that  the  reader  is  apt  to  take 
them  for  bad  rhymes  until  he  sees  that  "haires"  and 
"cleares"  are  intended  to  rhyme  together,  and  "neere" 
and  "deere."  The  sonnet  has  a  pathetic  tone  in  it: 
the  "  picture "  mentioned  is  the  picture  he  has  drawn 
of  her  in  the  other  sonnets  :  and  the  whole  may  be  col- 
lated interestingly  with  those  of  Shakspere's  in  which 
he  promises  a  similar  immortality  to  his  friend  through 
his  verse. 

When  winter  snowes  upon  thy  sable  haires, 
And  frost  of  age  hath  nipt  thy  beauties  neere, 
When  darke  shall  seeme  the  day  that  never  cleares, 
And  all  lies  withered  that  was  held  so  deere, 
Then  take  this  picture  which  I  here  present  thee, 
Limned  with  a  Pensill  .  .  .  not  all  unworthy: 
Here  see  the  gifts  that  God  and  Nature  lent  thee, 
Here  read  thyselfe  and  what  I  suffered  for  thee. 
This  may  remaine  thy  lasting  monument, 
Which  happily  posterity  may  cherrish  : 
These  colours  with  thy  fading  are  not  spent, 
These  may  remain  when  thou  and  I  shall  perish. 
If  they  remaine,  then  thou  shalt  live  thereby: 
They  will  remaine  and  so  thou  canst  not  die. 

Fifthly :  rhymes  involving  sweet,  sonorous,  and  dig- 
nified vowel-colors,  such  as  "  ore "  and  "  restore," 
"name"  and  "blame,"  " harm  "  and  "alarm,"  and  the 
like,  are  in  general  to  be  favored  beyond  those  of  more 
finical  color,  as  "pity"  and  "witty,"  "seem"  and 
"gleam,"  "  hid  "  and  "  kid,"  and  so  on. 


302  Science  of  English   Verse. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

DISTRIBUTION    OF    VOWEL-COLORS    IN    THE    LINE-GROUP. 

FEW  points  in  the  physical  well-being  of  a  formal 
poem  require  more  artistic  care  than  the  insidious  recur- 
rence of  the  same  vowel-color  in  consecutive  or  neigh- 
boring words,  to  the  extent  of  wearying  the  ear  or  its 
imagination. 

Consider,  for  example,  the  following  lines,  which  have 
been  made  as  atrocious  as  possible  in  order  to  set  the 
fault  forth  clearly. 

'Tis  May-day  gay  :  wide-smiling  skies  shine  bright, 
Through  whose  true  blue  cuckoos  do  woo  anew 
The  tender  spring  &c. 

In  the  first  four  words  of  the  first  line,  the  vowel- 
color  ay  recurs  three  times  consecutively :  in  the  five 
next  words  of  the  same  line  the  vowel-color  I  occurs 
five  times  nearly  in  succession,  the  only  break  being 
the  vowel-color  z'in  "ing." 

In  the  second  line,  the  vowel-color  u  (long  u,  or  oo) 
occurs  eight  times,  relieved  only  by  the  shorter  sound 
of  u  in  "  cuck- "  and  the  color  of  a  in  "  anew." 

This  exaggerated  iterance  of  the  same  vowel-color  is 
of  course  intolerable,  and  teaches  the  necessity  of  care 
in  this  matter.  Perhaps  no  person  who  has  never  been 
a  practical  craftsman  in  verse  would  be  aware  how  care- 
fully the  technic  of  the  word-artist  unconsciously  leads 
him  away,  after  that  technic  has  become  —  as  it  should 
be  —  instinctive,  from  these  recurrences. 


Examples  from  Daniel  and  Griffin.      303 

It  must  not  be  imagined  for  a  moment  that  this  is  a 
small  defect,  condemned  only  by  over-refinement.  The 
good  craftsman  always  avoids  it :  the  bad  craftsman 
may  be  known  by  its  presence. 

Here,  indeed,  no  rules  beyond  the  judgment  of  the 
artist's  ear  need  be  given.  Once  the  student's  attention 
is  called  to  the  matter,  it  will  be  easy  to  observe  how 
the  works  of  all  the  conscientious  makers  are  free  from 
this  fault,  and  how  closely  their  continued  acceptance 
among  men  from  age  to  age  is  connected  with  that 
scrupulous  love  for  the  beautiful  which  lies  at  the  bot- 
tom of  their  substance  as  well  as  their  form,  and  which 
can  abide  no  flaw. 

To  assign  limits  to  the  number  of  recurrences  of  one 
vowel-color  which  may  be  permitted  in  a  line,  would  be 
to  make  rules  subject  to  many  exceptions.  For  exam- 
ple, Samuel  Daniel,  in  a  certain  ravishing  sonnet  to  his 
Delia,  has  come  dangerously  near  such  a  limit  in  the 
first  line, 

Restore  thy  tresses  to  the  golden  ore, 

where  long  o  occurs  four  times  :  yet  the  vowel-color  o  is 
itself  so  fine,  as  a  mere  sensuous  impression,  that  one 
would  not  dare  to  suggest  any  less  frequent  appearance 
of  it  in  the  given  line.  Perhaps  therefore  the  most 
profitable  lesson  for  the  student  will  be  to  cite  some 
poem  for  analysis  in  which  this  fault  is  finely  avoided, 
under  peculiarly  troublesome  circumstances.  To  this 
end,  scrutinize  each  vowel-color  in  the  following  sonnet 
of  Bartholomew  Griffin's  (i6th  century)  to  his  Fidessa. 
Here,  since  every  line  ends  in  the  same  color  —  that  of 
ear  in  heart — it  was  particularly  difficult  to  avoid  dis- 
agreeable recurrences,  the  choice  being  thus  more  than 


304  Science  of  English   Verse. 

usually  limited  :  yet  —  though  of  course  Griffin  was  not 
conscious  of  any  special  exertion  to  this  end  —  the  suc- 
cession of  colors  is  everywhere  grateful  to  the  ear,  and 
there  are  few  poems  which  are  pleasanter  to  read  aloud. 

The  lover  is  speaking  to  Cupid,  much  as  Prospero 
would  speak  to  his  airy  servant  Ariel ;  and  is  apparently 
giving  Cupid  instructions  how  to  proceed  in  laying  siege 
to  his  mistress's  heart  in  his  behalf.  As  his  whole 
thought  is  upon  this  "heart"  of  his  mistress,  he  makes 
that  word  the  burden  of  the  poem :  it  is  thus  really  a 
sort  of  sonnet  with  a  refrain. 

Says  Griffin  :  and  one  may  imagine  that  Cupid,  with 
gay  wings  all  in  a  flutter,  is  hovering  just  at  his  ear, 
like  a  humming-bird  poised  over  a  flower-bell,  ready  to 
dart  off  on  his  errand  as  soon  as  he  may : 

XXIII. 

Fly  to  her  heart,  hover  about  her  heart, 
With  dainty  kisses  mollifie  her  heart, 
Pierce  with  thine  arrows  her  obdurate  heart, 
With  sweet  allurements  ever  move  her  heart; 
At  midday  and  at  midnight  touch  her  heart, 
Be  lurking  closely,  nestle  about  her  heart; 
With  power  (thou  art  a  god)  command  her  heart, 
Kindle  thy  coales  of  love  about  her  heart, 
Yea  even  into  thyself  transforme  her  heart. 
Ah,  she  must  love,  be  sure  thou  have  her  heart, 
And  I  must  dye,  if  thou  have  not  her  heart. 
Thy  bed  (if  thou  rest  well)  must  be  her  heart : 
He  hath  the  best  part  sure  that  hath  the  heart; 
What  have  I  not,  if  I  have  but  her  heart  ? 


Difficult  Junction  of  st  and  si.          305 


CHAPTER   XIII. 

OF  CONSONANT-DISTRIBUTION  :  JUNCTION,   AND   PHONETIC 

SYZYGY. 

EVERY  one  must  have  more  or  less  experience  of  the 
great  difference  in  the  ease  with  which  different  conso- 
nants can  be  uttered  after  a  given  consonant.  For  ex- 
ample :  if  the  student  will  utter  as  rapidly  as  possible 
the  sounds  lal  lal  lal  lal  lal  lal  &c.,  the  terminal  /  of 
each  lal  is  found  to  make  an  easy  junction  with  the  ini- 
tial /  of  the  next,  and  consequently  a  very  rapid  utter- 
ance of  the  syllables  is  easy. 

But  other  successions  of  consonants  will  be  found 
more  and  more  troublesome.  For  example  a  terminal  g 
before  an  initial  b  involves  such  awkward  re-arrange- 
ments of  the  vocal  organs  that,  upon  trying  to  utter  the 
sounds  bag  bag  bag  bag  &c.,  the  student  will  find  it  im- 
possible to  make  the  succession  any  thing  like  so  rapid 
as  in  the  case  of  lal  lal  lal  &c. 

If  again  the  three  words  shouldst  stand  still  be  tried, 
it  will  be  found  impossible  to  utter  them  rapidly  at  all ; 
the  distinct  enunciation  of  the  initial  consonant-sounds 
st  in  "  stand  "  after  the  terminal  consonant-sound  st  in 
"  shouldst "  involves  such  an  entire  new  adjustment  of 
the  vocal  organs  as  to  necessitate  a  perceptible  interval 
of  time  between  one  st  and  the  other. 

Now  this  awkwardness  is  very  clearly  felt  in  a  series 
of  words,  even  if  they  are  not  uttered  aloud,  but  merely 
read  by  the  eye  in  silence  ;  and  the  selection  of  such 


306  Science  of  English   Verse. 

words  as  melt  flowingly  into  each  other  is  one  of  the 
most  important  of  those  cares  that  brood  unseen  in  the 
mind  over  the  birth  of  a  poem. 

Here,  again,  no  directions  are  necessary,  beyond  call- 
ing attention  to  the  matter.  The  good  artist  is  all 
conscience  :  he  has  but  to  know  a  sin  against  beauty, 
to  take  all  precautions  against  permitting  it.  The  more 
the  student  searches  the  art  of  words,  the  more  it  will 
be  found  that  all  the  great  artists  have  been  scrupulous 
in  this  particular.  Not  to  be  so  is  to  make  a  poem 
which  saws  the  ear  with  sharp  notches  of  sound. 

PHONETIC    SYZYGY. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  in  alliteration  the  impor- 
tant limit  is  necessary  that  the  alliterative  letter  must 
begin  always  an  accented  syllable. 

There  is  however  an  important  co-ordination  of  con- 
sonant-colors made  by  the  ear  in  every  series  of  verse- 
sounds,  which  takes  pleasurable  note  of  the  recurrence 
of  all  same,  or  like,  consonant-colors,  whether  at  the 
beginning,  middle  or  end,  of  accented  or  unaccented 
syllables. 

The  extent  of  this  co-ordination  cannot  be  properly 
set  forth  until  the  relations  of  several  consonants  are 
recalled.  If  the  consonants  D,  T,  and  Th,  be  carefully 
uttered,  the  student  will  observe  that  the  three  involve 
nearly  the  same  adjustment  of  the  vocal  organs  ;  so  do 
P,  B,  and  V;  so  do  G,  C  (hard),  and  K.  This  similari- 
ty involves  a  similarity  of  tone-color,  and  we  may  say 
therefore  that  D,  T,  and  Th,  are  similar  consonant- 
colors  ;  P,  B,  and  V,  are  similar  colors ;  and  G,  C,  and 
K. 

Now  if  a  given  line  of  verse  show  such  a  succession 


Phonetic  Syzygy.  307 

of  colors  —  that  is  a  succession  of  the  same,  or  similar, 
colors  —  all  the  colors  may  be  taken  note  of  by  the  ear 
as  a  general  prevalence  of  a  given  color,  without  refer- 
ence to  whether  they  occur  at  the  beginning  (allitera- 
tive letter),  at  the  end  (junction  consonant)  or  in  the 
body,  of  words.  Such  a  succession  of  consonant-colors 
has  been  called  Phonetic  Syzygy  (syzygy,  from  sun- 
zugia,  yoking  together)  by  Professor  Sylvester,  in  his 
Laws  of  Verse,  and  the  term  seems  so  happy  as  to  be  a 
genuine  contribution  to  the  nomenclature  of  the  science 
of  English  verse. 

To  take  a  simple  illustration  of  phonetic  syzygy  :  in 

the  phrase 

The  daily  torment  of  untruth 

(from  one  of  Daniel's  sonnets)  the  ear  may  not  only 
co-ordinate  the  alliterative  t's  which  begin  the  accented 
syllables  "tor-"  and  "-truth,"  but  may  take  further 
account  of  the  d  in  "daily," — for  d  belongs  to  the  class 
of  T-sounds,  as  just  explained  —  of  the  last  t  in  "tor- 
ment," and  of  the  th  in  "untruth."  Here  are  five 
T-sounds  occurring  closely  together ;  and  this  is  a 
syzygy  of  T-sounds. 

Similarly  let  the  student  pick  out  the  /^-colors,  and 
the  d  and  /  colors,  in  the  opening  of  Shakspere's 

sonnet 

Let  me  not  to  the  marriage  of  true  minds 
Admit  impediments ; 

these  constituting  respectively  syzygies  of  M-sounds 
and  of  T-sounds. 

The  term  "  syzygy,"  it  should  be  noted,  was  used  in 
the  classic  prosody  for  a  wholly  different  sort  of  co- 
ordinations, namely,  a  rhythmic  kind,  which  consisted 


308  Science  of  English   Verse. 

of  the  possible  irregular  groups  of  quantities  larger  than 
those  included  in  their  rhythmic  system  of  verse.  For 
example  feet  of  the  form  v^ww--->or  of  the  form 
_w__^_,  or  many  other  such  possible  combinations 
not  specified  by  prosody,  were  included  under  the  gen- 
eral term  syzygies,  or  yokings-together  of  quantities. 

As  in  the  other  cases,  it  is  not  deemed  proper  to  give 
specific  directions  for  phonetic  syzygy  in  verse.  The 
habit  of  noting  such  sequences  will  presently  breed  in 
the  mind  that  unconscious  care  of  them  which  will 
guide  the  thought,  in  its  working,  towards  the  proper 
combinations. 

It  is  impossible  not  to  cite  in  this  connection  the  two 
perfect  lines  of  Tennyson  whose  physical  beauty  depends 
on  their  suave  syzygy  of  M-colors,  aided  by  a  delicious 
distribution  of  vowel-colors  : 

The  moan  of  doves  in  immemorial  elms 
And  rtfurmurim;  of  innumerable  bees. 


Sounds,  not  Letters^  alliterate.  309 


CHAPTER   XIV. 

OF   ALLITERATION. 

ALLITERATION  occurs  where  the  initial  vowel-sounds 
or  consonant-sounds  of  two  or  more  consecutive,  or  near, 
accented  syllables  are  the  same.  In  the  rhyme  these 
initial  sounds  are  necessarily  different :  and  to  this 
extent  alliteration  is  the  counterpart  of  rhyme. 

For  example,  in 

Full/athom/ive  thy/ather  lies, 

the  italicized /'s  are  alliterative,  for  they  begin  accented 
sounds :  while  the  first  F,  in  "  Full,"  is  not  strictly 
alliterative  since  it  comes  on  an  unaccented  syllable. 

Observe  that  it  is  the  sound,  and  not  the  letter,  which 
is  alliterative  ;  and  hence,  as  in  the  case  of  rhyme,  we 
may  have  alliteration  when  the  letters  are  different,  as 

The  sea  that  doth  exceed  his  banks, 

where  the  "s"  in  "sea"  and  the  "c"  in  "exceed" 
alliterate,  being  the  same  color,  though  different  letters; 
and  so  we  may  not  have  alliteration  where  the  letters 
are  the  same,  as  in 

The  harp  not  honor'd  with  a  song, 

where  the  h  in  "  harp  "  does  not  alliterate  with  the  h 
in  "  honor'd,"  the  one  being  pronounced  and  the  other 
not. 

I  have  already  detailed  the  rhythmic  function  of 
alliteration  and  have  called  the  student's  attention  to 


3io  Science  of  English   Verse. 

the  wholly  different  part  played,  as  to  this  function,  by 
alliteration  in  Anglo-Saxon  poetry  from  that  in  more 
modern  English  verse.  We  found  that  while  allitera- 
tion was  used  among  the  Anglo-Saxon  poets  to  establish 
and  fortify  the  main  rhythm  of  the  verse,  its  effect  in 
modern  verse  is  to  vary  the  main  rhythm  by  irregular 
and  unlooked-for  groups  which  break  the  monotony  of 
the  set  rhythmic  movement. 

The  law  of  alliteration  was  strikingly  specialized  in 
Anglo-Saxon  verse,  as  already  detailed.  Many  lines  * 
were  found  to  present  one  of  the  two  following  types  : 
either  the  first  three  accented  verse-sounds  begin  with 
the  same  consonant-color,  or  with  some  vowel-color ;  or 
the  second  and  third  accented  sounds  begin  with  the 
same  consonant-color,  or  with  some  vowel-color.  Thus 
a  passage  from  The  Phcenix,  already  partly  quoted,  has 
every  line  of  the  first  type  (3  alliterative  letters)  except 
the  third,  which  presents  the  second  type  (2  alliterative 
letters).  To  show  these  alliterative  letters  clearly  to 
the  eye,  they  are  printed  in  Italic  capitals. 

Ne  .Forstes  ^hasst,  ne  /-yres  blaest, 
ne  //aegles  //ryre,  ne  //rimes  dryre, 
ne  Yunnan  haetu,    ne  6"incald, 
ne  ffarm  Weder,  ne  Winter  scur, 

W ihte  geWirdan,  ac  se  Wong  seomath 

EAd\g  and  Onsund;  is  thaet  ^thele  lond 

.£?lostmum  ge/>lowen. 

Inasmuch  as  this  alliterative  letter  is,  except  in  very 
rare  cases,  the  initial  letter  of  an  important  word,  —  and 
moreover  of  the  important  sound  of  an  important  word 
—  it  is  easy  to  see  that  such  alliteration  must  have 

1  I  speak  of  the  double  section  as  a  "  line : "  it  corresponds  precisely 
with  the  line-group  as  herein  detailed. 


Line -Groups  broken  by  Alliteration.      311 

made  the  beat  of  the  rhythmic  movement  very  strong 
and  commanding  to  the  ear;  for  the  first  verse-sound  in 
every  alliterated  bar  is  thus  signalized  to  the  ear  by  a 
pronunciation-accent,  a  logical  accent,  a  rhythmic  ac- 
cent, and  a  tone-color. 

The  fondness  for  alliteration  thus  displayed  in  our 
early  poetry  remains  palpable  to  this  day  in  a  thousand 
alliterative  proverbs,  saws,  and  sayings  which  have 
come  down  from  old  times,  such  as  "  Many  ATen,  Many 
Minds,"  "  Time  and  Tide  wait  for  no  man," 

"  When  5ale  is  highest 
.#oon  is  nighest" 

which  is  equivalent  to  "  The  darkest  hour's  before  the 
Z>awn  ; "  and  many  such  which  every  reader  will  recall. 

But,  as  was  said,  the  rhythmic  office  of  alliteration  in 
modern  English  verse  is  to  break  the  monotony  of 
regular  groups  by  interjecting  irregular  groups.  In  the 
following  lines,  for  example,  which  are  the  last  six  of  a 
charming  sonnet  by  Thomas  Watson,  (a  i6th  century 
sonnet-maker  whose  Hckatompatlieia,  or  Hundred  Pas- 
sions, contains  some  good  sonnet-work),  the  letters 
which  I  have  printed  in  capitals  to  attract  the  eye  really 
attract  the  ear  in  the  same  way.  Observe  that  two 
alliterative  sounds  are  found,  often,  one  near  the  end 
of  one  line,  the.  other  near  the  beginning  of  the  next 
line :  thus  the  line-group,  which  is  apt  to  grow  monoto- 
nous, is  relieved  by  other  groups  which  are  bound 
together  and  forced  upon  the  ear  by  the  alliterative 
letters. 

In  the  first  lines  the  sonnetteer  has  been  expressing 
his  rapture  on  hearing  his  mistress  sing. 


312  Science  of  English   Verse. 

And  who  so  mad  that  ffould  not  W\\h  his  Will 
Z.eese  Zibertie  and  Zife  to  heare  her  sing 
Whose  voice  exceeds  those  harmonies  that  .Fill 
Elisian  ^"ieldes  where  growes  eternall  Spring  ? 
If  mightie  Jove  should  7/eare  what  I  have  //ard, 
She  (sure)  were  His,  and  all  my  Market  Afarde ! 

Alliteration,  like  rhyme,  had  come  to  excite  a  party 
against  it  in  the  i6th  century,  though  there  was  an 
opposite  party  who  ran  it  fearfully  beyond  its  province. 
Even  Chaucer,  with  his  "  Rim,  ram,  ruf,"  had  made 
fun  of  the  dismal  long  alliterative  poems  written  in  the 
two  centuries  preceding  him,  whose  dull  iterations  were 
indeed  enough  to  drive  the  ear  mad.  King  James  and 
the  Scottish  poets  of  the  I5th  century  held  it  in  high 
regard :  the  king  even  says,  in  his  Reulis  &c.,  "  Let  all 
your  verse  be  Literall  "  —  meaning  by  "  literall  "  alliter- 
ative. Gascoigne,  on  the  other  hand,  is  more  guarded  : 
"  many  writers  "  he  says,  indulge  "  in  repeticion  of  sun- 
drie  wordes  all  beginning  with  one  letter,  the  whiche, 
(beyng  modestly  used)  lendeth  good  grace  to  a  verse : 
but  they  do  so  hunt  a  letter  to  death,  that  they  make  it 
Crambe,  and  crainbe  bis  positum  mors  est :  therefore,  Ne 
quid  nimisy  And  in  another  connection  he  declares 
that  "it  is  not  inough  to  roll  inpleasant  woordes,  nor 
yet  to  thunder  in  Rym,  Ram,  Ruff,  by  letter.  ..." 

I  find  Robert  Greene,  too,  burlesquing  Stanihurst's 
alliteration,  later  than  Gascoigne's  utterances  above : 

Then  did  he  make  heaven's  vault  to  rebound 

With  rounce  robble  bobble 
Of  ruffe  raffe  roaring 
With  thwick  thwack  thurlerie  bouncing. 

And,  still  later,  we  all  know  Shakspere's  jokes  on  the 
alliterators,  in  "  Raging  rocks  with  shivering  shocks," 


Error  of  Turner  and  Tyrwhitt.          313 

and  "The  preyful  princess  pierced  &c."  of  Love's 
Labor's  Lost. 

It  is  one  of  those  curiosities  of  opinion  which  make 
us  pinch  ourselves  and  ask  if  we  are  all  in  a  dream,  that 
Sharon  Turner,  a  laborious  historian  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxons,  only  partly  believed  in  the  alliteration  of  their 
verse,  and  that  Tyrwhitt  flatly  denied  the  presence  of 
any  alliteration  in  it. 

Says  Turner :  "  I  am  willing  to  concur  with  Mr.  J. 
Conybeare  that  alliteration  was  used  in  Saxon  poetry. 
.  .  .  But  I  think  it  was  as  an  occasional  beauty,  not  as 
in  Pierce  Ploughman  the  fundamental  principle  "  (Hist, 
of  England,  Vol.  III.,  Ang.  Sax.  Period,  pp.  357-8,  note 

4). 

Tyrwhitt,  however,  is  more  sweeping :  as  if  one 
should  stand  forth  and  offer  to  maintain  against  all 
comers,  Paynim  or  Christian,  that  there  was  never  such 
a  building  as  the  Tower  of  London.  "That  the  Saxons 
had  a  species  of  writing  which  differed  from  their  com- 
mon prose,  and  was  considered  by  themselves  as  poetry 
is  very  certain  ;  but  it  seems  equally  certain,  that  their 
compositions  of  that  kind  were  neither  divided  into 
verses  of  a  determinate  number  of  syllables,  nor  embel- 
lished with  what  we  call  rhyme."  To  which  he  adds  in 
a  note :  "  We  do  not  see  any  marks  of  studied  allitera- 
tion in  the  old  Saxon  poetry." 

These  citations  are  given  as  instructive  examples  to 
the  student  of  the  quaint  absurdities  into  which  criti- 
cism may  be  led  when  working  on  the  vague  estimates 
prevalent  until  quite  recent  times,  and  as  testimonials 
to  the  value  of  the  exacter  methods  which  are  indicated 
by  the  metrical  tests  heretofore  described.  While,  as 
often  before  remarked,  these  metrical  tests  are  not  to 


3 1 4  Science  of  English   Verse. 

be  made  the  excuse  for  swinging  into  the  opposite 
error  of  over-minuteness,  they  represent,  when  properly 
estimated,  a  tendency  to  precise,  well-founded  and  truth- 
ful judgments  which  must  be  regarded  as  bound  to 
initiate  a  literary  scholarship  of  more  character  than 
the  world  has  yet  seen. 

The  brief  account  given  of  alliteration  has  been  de- 
vised to  replace  for  the  student  any  formal  rules  or 
cautions  for  its  use.  None  could  be  given,  indeed, 
which  would  be  more  definite  than  the  inference  which 
the  student  must  necessarily  draw  from  the  preceding 
outline,  namely,  that  all  alliteration  for  the  sake  of 
alliteration  is  trifling,  and  that  in  modern  English  verse 
it  is  to  be  used  with  such  delicate  art  that  the  ear  will 
unconsciously  feel  its  indefinite  presence,  varying  the 
verse  as  brief  irregular  bird-calls,  heard  in  the  wood 
here  and  there,  seem  to  add  a  delight  to  the  mass  of 
green.  There  was  never  a  more  consummate  artist  in 
the  use  of  this  delicate  effect  than  Shakspere.  I  do 
not  recollect  one  instance  in  his  works  where  an  alliter- 
ation occurs  that  makes  any  claim  on  its  own  account. 
Such  alliteration  is  felt,  through  the  infinite  decorum 
and  gentility  which  broods  at  the  bottom  of  art,  to  be 
always  tawdry,  vulgar,  and  intrusive.  Scarcely  any 
word  so  well  expresses  the  feeling  produced  by  it  as 
that  which  is  often  applied  in  America  to  certain  styles 
of  dress  —  "loud."  And  perhaps  no  more  definite 
caution  can  be  given  the  student  than  that  all  allitera- 
tion which  attracts  any  attention  as  alliteration  is  loud. 


The  Artist's  Law.  315 


CHAPTER   XV. 

OF  THE  EDUCATED  LOVE  OF  BEAUTY,  AS  THE  ARTIST'S 
ONLY  LAW. 

AND  this  sketch  of  the  colors  of  English  verse  may 
now  be  closed  with  the  statement,  already  partly  anti- 
cipated in  several  other  connections,  that  the  matters 
herein  treated  are  only  in  the  nature  of  hints  leading  to 
the  widest  possible  views  of  poetic  form,  and  by  no 
means  laws.  For  the  artist  in  verse  there  is  no  law : 
the  perception  and  love  of  beauty  constitute  the  whole 
outfit ;  and  what  is  herein  set  forth  is  to  be  taken 
merely  as  enlarging  that  perception  and  exalting  that 
love.  In  all  cases,  the  appeal  is  to  the  ear ;  but  the  ear 
should,  for  that  purpose,  be  educated  up  to  the  highest 
possible  plane  of  culture.  With  this  sort  of  ear  under- 
stood, one  may  say  that  King  James  has  summed  up 
the  whole  matter  in  his  homely  Scotch  words :  "  Zour 
eare  maun  be  the  onely  iudge,  as  of  all  the  other  parts 
of  Floiving"  (that  is,  of  rytltmic  movement}  " the  verie 
twichestane  quhairof  is  musique." 


MENTAL  AND  MORAL  SCIENCE. 


AN  OUTLINE  STUDY  OF  MAN;  or,  the  Body  and  Mind  in  One 
System.  With  illustrative  diagrams.  Revised  edition.  By 
MARK  HOPKINS,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  late  President  of  Williams 
College.  12mo,  $1.75. 

This  is  a  model  of  the  developing  method  as  applied  to  intellectual 
science.  The  work  is  on  an  entirely  new  plan.  It  presents  man  in 
his  unity,  and  his  several  faculties  and  their  relations  are  so  presented 
to  the  eye  in  illustrative  diagrams  as  to  be  readily  apprehended. 
The  work  has  come  into  very  general  use  in  this  country  as  a  man- 
ual for  instruction,  and  the  demand  for  it  is  increasing  every  year. 

GENERAL  S.  C.  ARMSTRONG,  Principal  of  Hampton  Institute.— "  I  am 
glad  of  the  opportunity  to  express  my  high  appreciation  of  Dr.  Hopkins'  Outline 
Study  of  Man.  It  has  done  more  for  me  personally  than  any  book  besides  the 
Bible.  More  than  any  other  it  teaches  the  greatest  of  lessons.  Know  thyself.  For 
over  ten  years,  I  have  made  it  a  text  book  in  tbe  Senior  Class  of  this  school.  It 
Is,  I  think,  the  greatest  and  most  useful  of  the  books  of  the  greatest  of  our  Am- 
erican educators.  Rev.  Dr.  Hopkins,  and  is  destined  to  do  a  great  work  in  forming 
not  only  the  ideas  but  the  character  of  youth  in  America  and  in  other  parts  of  the 
world." 

PROF.  ADDISON  BALLARD,  of  Lafayette  College.— "I  have  for  years  used 
Dr.  Hopkins'  Outline  Study  of  Kan,  in  connection  with  his  Law  of  Love,  as  a  text 
book  for  our  Senior  Classes.  I  have  done  this  with  unfailing  success  and  with 
Increasing  satisfaction.  It  is  of  incalculable  advantage  to  the  student  to  come 
under  the  Influence,  through  his  books,  of  this  great  master  of  thought  and  of  style. 
I  cannot  speak  of  Outline  study  In  terms  of  too  hearty  commendation." 

THE  LAW  OF  LOVE,  AND  LOVE  AS  A  LAW;  or,  Christian 
Ethics.  By  MARK  HOPKINS,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  late  President 
of  Williams  College.  12mo,  $1.75. 

This  work  is  designed  to  follow  the  author's  Outline  Study  of  Man, 
As  its  title  indicates  it  is  entirely  an  exposition  of  the  cardinal  precept 
of  Christian  philosophy  in  harmony  with  nature  and  on  the  basis  of 
reason.  Like  the  treatise  on  mental  philosophy  it  is  adapted  with 
unusual  skill  to  educational  uses. 

It  appears  in  a  new  edition,  which  has  been  in  part  re-written  in 
order  to  bring  it  into  closer  relation  to  his  Outline  Study  of  Man,  of 
which  work  it  is  really  a  continuation.  More  prominence  has  been 
given  to  the  idea  of  Rights,  but  the  fundamental  doctrines  of  the 
treatise  have  not  been  changed. 


CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS' 


PSYCHOLOGY.  By  JAMES  McCOSH,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  President 
of  Princeton  College.  I.— The  Cognitive  Powers.  II.— The 
Motive  Powers.  2  vols.,  12mo.  Sold  separately.  Each, 
$1.50. 

The  first  volume  contains  an  analysis  of  the  operations  of  the  senses, 
and  of  their  relation  to  the  intellectual  processes,  with  a  discussion 
of  sense  perception  from,  the  physiological  side,  accompanied  by  ap- 
propriate cuts.  A  third  of  the  book  is  devoted  to  the  Reproductive 
or  Representative  Powers,  including  such  subjects  as  the  association 
of  ideas,  the  power  of  composition,  etc. ,  concluding  with  a  discussion 
of  the  Comparative  Powers.  The  second  volume  treats  of  the  Motive 
Powers,  as  they  are  called,  the  Orective,  the  Appetent,  the  Impulsive 
Powers  ;  including  the  Conscience,  Emotions,  and  Will. 

PROFESSOR  WILLIAM  DE  W.  HYDE,  of  BowOoin  College.— "  The  book  13 
written  in  a  clear  and  simple  style ;  it  breathes  a  sweet  and  winning  spirit ;  and 
it  is  inspired  by  a  noble  purpose.  In  these  respects  it  is  a  model  of  what  a  text 
book  should  be." 

S.  L.  CALDWELL,  late  President  of  Vassar  College.— "  I  have  read  the  boot 
with  much  interest.  It  is  what  was  to  have  been  expected  from  the  ability  and 
long  experience  ol  the  author.  The  style  la  clear  and  simple ;  the  matter  is  well 
distributed ;  it  well  covers  the  ground  usually  taught  In  such  text  books,  and  I 
am  sure  any  teacher  would  find  it  a  helpful  guide  in  his  classes." 

ELEMENTS  OF  PHYSIOLOGICAL  PSYCHOLOGY.  By 
GEORGE  T.  LADD,  D.D.,  Professor  of  Mental  and  Moral 
Philosophy  in  Yale  University.  With  numerous  illustrations. 
8vo,  $4.50. 

Professor  Ladd's  "Physiological  Psychology"  is  the  first  treatise 
that  has  attempted  to  present  to  English  readers  a  discussion  of  the 
whole  subject  brought  down  to  the  most  recent  times.  It  includes  the 
latest  discoveries,  and  by  numerous  and  excellent  illustrations  and 
tables,  brings  before  the  reader  in  a  compact  and  yet  lucid  form  the 
entire  subject. 

The  work  has  three  principal  divisions,  of  which,  the  first  consists 
of  a  description  of  the  structure  and  functions  of  the  Nervous  System 
considered  simply  as  a  mechanism.  The  second  part  describes  the 
various  classes  of  correlations  which  exist  between  the  phenomena  of 
the  nervous  mechanism  and  mental  phenomena,  with  the  laws  of  these 
various  classes.  I  he  third  part  presents  such  conclusions  as  may  be 
legitimately  gathered  or  inferred  concerning  the  nature  of  the  human 
mind. 

PROF.  WILLIAM  JAMES  in  The  Nation.— "His  erudition,  and  his  broad- 
mindedness  are  on  a  par  with  each  other  ;  and  his  volume  will  probably  for  many 
years  to  come  be  the  standard  work  of  reference  on  the  subject." 

THE  SCHOOL  JOURNAL.— "It  is  impossible  in  a  brief  notice  to  give  any 
adequate  conception  of  the  scientific  character  and  practical  application  of  this 
admirable  volume.  In  its  class  it  stands  alone  among  American  books.  No 
thorough  student  of  psychology  will  rest  satisfied  until  he  owns  a  copy  of  this  work.1  > 


STANDARD   TEXT  BOOKS. 


FINAL  CAUSES.  By  PAUL  JANET,  Member  of  the  French 
Academy.  With  a  Preface  by  Robert  Flint,  D.D.,  LL.D. 
From  second  French  edition.  8vo,  $2.50. 

PROF.  FRANCIS  L.  PATTON.  of  Princeton  Theological  Seminary.— "I  re- 
gard Janet's  •  Final  Causes '  as  Incomparably  tbc  best  thing  In  literature  on  the 
subject  of  which  It  treats,  and  that  It  ought  to  be  In  the  hands  of  every  man  who 
has  any  Interest  In  the  present  phases  of  the  thcistlc  problem.  I  have  recom- 
mended It  to  my  classes  In  the  seminary,  and  make  constant  use  of  It  In  my  In- 
structions." 

NOAH  PORTER,  D.D.,  LL.D..  late  President  of  Tale  College.—"  I  am  delighted 
that  you  have  published  Janet's  '  Final  Causes '  In  an  Improved  form  and  at  a 
price  which  brings  it  within  the  reach  of  many  who  desire  to  possess  it.  It  Is,  in 
my  opinion,  the  most  suggestive  treatise  on  thia  important  topic  which  Is  access- 
ible In  our  language." 

THE   HUMAN   INTELLECT.    By  NOAH  PORTER,  D.D..  LL.D., 

late  President  of  Yale  College.    With  an  Introduction  upon 

Psychology  and  the  Human  Soul.    Cvo,  $5.00. 

The  author  has  not  only  designed  to  furnish  a  text  book  which  shall 

be  sufficiently  comprehensive  and  scientific  to  satisfy  the  wants  of  the 

many  students  of  psychology  and  speculative  philosophy  who  are  found 

in  our  higher  institutions  of  learning,  but  al.so  to  prepare  a  volume 

which  may  guide  the  advanced  student  to  a  clear  understanding  and  a 

just  estimate  of  the  questions  which  have  perpetually  appeared  and 

reappeared  in  the  history  of  philosophy. 

THE  BRITISH  QUARTERLY  REVIEW.— "President  Porter's  work,  the  result 
of  thirty  years'  professional  labor,  Is  not  only  tlic  most  Important  philosophical 
work  that  has  appeared  In  oar  language  since  Sir  William  Hamilton's,  but  Its 
form  as  a  manual  makes  It  Invaluable  to  students." 

THE  PRINCETON  REVIEW.— "After  a  careful  examination  of  this  truly  great 
work,  we  are  ready  to  pronounce  It  the  most  complete  and  exhaustive  exhibition 
of  the  cognitive  faculties  of  tbc  human  soul  to  be  found  in  our  language,  and,  so 
far  as  we  know,  in  any  language.  The  work  la  a  monument  of  the  author's  In- 
sight, Industry,  learning,  and  judgment;  one  of  tie  great  productions  of  our 
time ;  an  honor  to  our  country,  and  a  fresh  proof  that  genuine  philosophy  has  not 
died  out  among  us." 

ELEMENTS  OF  INTELLECTUAL  SCIENCE.  A  Manual  for 
Schools  and  Colleges.  By  NOAH  PORTER,  D.D.,  LL.D., 
late  President  of  Yale  College.  Ovo,  $3.00. 

This  is  an  abridgment  of  the  a  thor's  "  Human  Intellect,"  contain- 
ing all  the  matter  necessary  for  use  in  the  class-room,  and  has  been  in- 
troduced as  a  text-book  in  Yale,  Dartmouth,  Bowdoin,  Oberlin,  Bates, 
Hamilton,  Vassar,  and  Smith  Colleges ;  Wesleyan,  Ohio,  Lehigh  and 
Wooster  Universities,  and  many  other  colleges,  academies,  normal  and 
high  schools. 

THE  NEW  YORK  WORLD.— ••  The  abridgment  Is  very  well  done,  the  state- 
ments being  terse  and  perspicuous." 

THE  NEW  YORK  TRIBUNE.— ••  Presents  the  leading  facts  of  Intellectual 
adence,  from  the  author's  point  of  view,  with  clearness  and  vigor." 


CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS' 


ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE,  Theoretical  and  Practical. 

By   NOAH   PORTER,   D.D.,  LL.D.,   late   President  of  Yale 

College,    8vo,  $3.00, 

This  treatise  is  intended  primarily  for  the  use  of  college  and  uni- 
versity students,  and  is  prepared  with  reference  to  the  class-room.  It 
is  in  two  parts  :  the  first  treats  with  great  fullness  "  The  TJieory  of 
Duty,"  and  unfolds  comprehensively  the  psychology  of  the  moral 
powers  and  the  nature  of  the  moral  relations.  The  second  division, 
"The  Practice  of  Duty  or  Ethics,"  takes  up  the  different  classes  of 
duties  with  a  view  to  the  practical  application  of  the  principles  of 
moral  science  to  the  questions  arising  in  every  department  of  human 
activity.  In  every  respect  President  Porter's  work  is  abreast  of  the 
time,  and  leaves  no  controverted  point  undefended. 

GEORGE  S.  MORRIS,  Professor  of  Ethics,  University  of  Michigan.— "  I  have 
read  the  work  with  great  Interest,  and  parts  of  it  with  enthusiasm.  It  Is  a  vast 
improvement  on  any  of  the  current  text  books  of  ethics.  It  Is  tolerant  and 
catholic  in  tone ;  not  superficially,  but  soundly,  Inductive  in  method  and  ten- 
dency, and  rich  in  practical  suggestion.'" 

E.  G.  ROBINSON,  President  Brown  University.— "It  has  all  the  distinguish- 
ing marks  of  the  author's  work  on  '  The  Human  Intellect,'  Is  full  and  comprehen- 
sive in  Its  treatment,  dealing  largely  with  current  discussions,  and  very  naturally 
follows  It  as  a  text  book  for  the  class-room." 

JULIUS  H.  SEELYE,  PresiOent  Amherst  College.— "It  is  copious  and  clear, 
with  ample  scholarship  and  remarkable  insight,  and  I  am  sure  that  all  teachers 
of  Moral  Science  will  find  It  a  valuable  aid  in  their  instructions." 

OUTLINES  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  By  ARCHIBALD  ALEX- 
ANDER, D.D.,  LL.D.  12ino,  $1.50. 

This  book  is  elementary  in  its  character,  and  is  marked  by  great 
clearness  and  simplicity  of  style.  It  is  intended  to  lay  the  foundations 
and  elucidate  the  principles  of  the  Philosophy  of  Morals.  It  is  widely 
used  in  colleges  and  other  institutions  of  learning,  and  is  specially 
adapted  for  students  whose  age,  or  the  time  at  whose  disposal,  does 
not  permit  the  use  of  the  more  extended  and  abstruse  works  on  ethics. 

THE  THEORY  OF  MORALS.  By  PAUL  JANET,  Member  of  the 
French  Academy.  Translated  under  the  supervision  of 
President  Noah  Porter,  8vo,  $2.50. 

Prof.  Janet  in  this  book  gives  us  not  only  a  clear  and  concise  exam- 
ination of  the  whole  study  of  moral  science,  but  he  has  introduced  into 
the  discussion  many  elements  which  have  hitherto  been  too  much 
neglected.  The  first  principles  of  moral  science  and  the  fundamental 
idea  of  morals  the  author  describes  with  much  precision,  and  presents 
an  interesting  and  systematic  exposition  of  them. 

SCIENCE.—"  The  book  has  lucidity  and  Is  full  of  learning.  It  is  hardly  extrav- 
agant to  say  that  so  clear  and  picturesque  a  treatise,  In  the  hands  of  an  alert 
teacher,  might  save  the  study  of  ethics  from  Its  almost  Inevitable  fate  of  being 
very  dull." 


University  of  California 

SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 

405  Hilgard  Avenue,  Los  Angeles,  CA  90024-1388 

Return  this  material  to  the  library 

from  which  it  was  borrowed. 


QIOCT171994 


